Trusted index structure in a network environment

ABSTRACT

Methods and apparatuses of a trusted index structure in a network environment. In one embodiment, a data processing system includes a master device and at least one slave device to communicate with each other through a network; and a master lock status of a shared storage device to determine the master device.

PRIORITY

This application is a divisional of U.S. patent Ser. No. 11/112,351,filed on Apr. 22, 2005, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,962,449 which is acontinuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/877,581,filed on Jun. 25, 2004 now U.S. Pat. No. 7,730,012. This applicationalso claims priority to co-pending U.S. Provisional Patent ApplicationNo. 60/643,087 filed on Jan. 7, 2005, which provisional application isincorporated herein by reference in its entirety; this applicationclaims the benefit of the provisional's filing date under 35 U.S.C.§119(e). This present application hereby claims the benefit of theseearlier filing dates under 35 U.S.C. §120.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains materialwhich is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentor the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and TrademarkOffice patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrightrights whatsoever.

FIELD

Various embodiments relate to devices communicating within a network.More particularly, embodiments relate to methods and apparatuses of anindex structure in a network environment.

BACKGROUND

A modern data processing system such as a general purpose computersystem, often includes a file management system (e.g., as part of anoperating system) which allows a user to place a file (e.g., a wordprocessing program file, and/or an image processing program file, etc.)in various directories or subdirectories (e.g. folders) and allows theuser to give the file a name. Further, the file management system oftenallows the user to find the file by searching within a published data(e.g., announced by an application to the file management system) abouta file (e.g., a file's name, and/or a date of creation, and/or a date ofmodification, and/or a type of file). An example of the file managementsystem is a Finder program which operates on Macintosh computers fromApple Computer, Inc. of Cupertino, Calif. Another example of the filemanagement system program is a Windows Explorer program which operateson the Windows operating system from Microsoft Corporation of Redmond,Wash.

Both the Finder program and the Windows Explorer program include a findcommand that allows the user to search for files by querying thepublished data. However, this search capability searches through thepublished data which is the same for each file, regardless of the typeof file. Thus, for example, the published data for a Microsoft Word fileis the same as the published data for an Adobe PhotoShop file, and thepublished data often includes the file name, the type of file, the dateof creation, the date of last modification, the size of the file, andcertain other parameters which may be maintained for the file by thefile management system.

Certain application programs internally maintain data about a particularfile (e.g., an internally maintained meta-data). The internallymaintained meta-data may be considered meta-data because it is dataabout other data. The internally maintained meta-data for a particularfile may include information that is used when a particular applicationprogram is executed. For example, the user may add and/or edit meta-data(e.g., through a “properties” tab, such as whether an image shows aperson's likeness, etc.).

However, in existing systems, a user is not able to search for theinternally maintained meta-data across a variety of differentapplications using one search request from the user because theinternally maintained meta-data is not published to the file managementsystem. In addition, when a shared storage system is used (e.g., anetwork based file system), a file management system of each of thenodes (e.g., the data processing systems) is unable to search theinternally maintained meta-data of files associated with other nodesbecause of numerous technical challenges. These technical challengesinclude how to ensure that an index within each file management systemis up to date when different computers connected to the shared filesystem access, modify, and create data (e.g., the published data and/orthe internally maintained meta-data) within the shared storage system,how to prevent bottlenecking because of large data transfers of newindexes, and which node manages a master list of changes, etc.

SUMMARY OF THE DESCRIPTION

Apparatuses and methods of a trusted index structure in a networkenvironment are described in various aspects. In one aspect, a dataprocessing system includes a master device and at least one slave deviceto communicate with each other through a network; and a master lockstatus of a shared storage device to determine the master device basedon an algorithm. The algorithm may be at least one of a heartbeatmessaging, a first-in-time assertion, and/or a preferred clientanalysis. In addition, the master lock status may be claimed by a slavedevice if the current master device is disabled or relinquishes themaster lock.

A shared storage volume of the shared storage device may also have acontent structure, a trusted index structure, and a master list ofchanges generated by the master device. The master device mayintermittently update the trusted index structure of the shared storagevolume with entries in the master list of changes. The master list ofchanges may be generated by scanning the at least one slave list ofchanges intermittently for published change list entries. The trustedindex structure may reference both a meta-data library and a contentlibrary of the content structure. The meta-data library may includeinternally maintained meta-data and published meta-data. The meta-datalibrary may also include a new meta-data generated based on businessrules. The master list of changes may include changes made to variouscontent files by different slave devices.

The various content files may be created by different applicationprograms and may include different internally maintained meta-data. Thecontent structure may be searched for particular ones of the internallymaintained meta-data, the content, the published meta-data, and the newmeta-data. A first notification module of each of the at least one slavedevice may notify the master device when a change-list entry ispublished by any of the at least one slave device. A second notificationmodule of the master device may notify each of the at least one slavedevices when the master list of changes is published by the masterdevice. Each of the at least one slave devices may include a searchmodule, a local index data structure, a meta extractor module, achange-list management module, a change-list structure, a notificationmodule, and a prioritization module. A change-list generator of thechange-list management module of a particular slave device of the atleast one slave device may create a change-list entry in the change-liststructure of the particular slave device based on an operation to acontent file by the particular slave device.

A change-list updater of the change-list management module may updatethe local index structure when a particular slave device of the at leastone slave device receives the master list of changes from the masterdevice. The prioritization module may separate, within the change-liststructure, change-list entries of at least two sessions of the masterdevice based on physical station addresses associated with each of theat least two sessions. The meta-data extractor module may update thelocal index data structure with internally maintained meta-data,content, and published meta-data of a particular content file modifiedby at least a particular slave device.

In another aspect, a method of a slave device includes performing anoperation on a content file associated with the slave device; receivingnotification of changes to the content file; generating a change-listpacket of the received notification; and writing the change-list packetto a shared storage device. The method of the slave device may alsoinclude transforming into a master device when the slave devicetransmits a signal to a master lock status of the shared storage devicebefore other slave devices and when the master lock status is unlocked.The master lock status may use an algorithm chosen from a groupincluding at least one of a heartbeat messaging, a first-in-timeassertion, and a preferred client analysis to determine whether theslave device becomes the master device.

The master device may intermittently transmit a master list of changesto replace a trusted index structure of the shared storage device. Thecontent file may be stored on the shared storage device, along withother content files modifiable by other slave devices. The method of theslave device may also automatically generate a new meta-data based on atleast one business rule. The notification may include changes to the newmeta-data as well as changes to internally maintained meta-data andpublished meta-data. In addition, the shared storage device may besearched for particular ones of the new meta-data, the internallymaintained meta-data, and the published meta-data. Notifications fromthe master device may be received when a master list of changes ispublished.

In a further aspect, a method of a master device includes processing atleast one change list entry generated by at least one slave device,updating a master list of changes based upon the at least one changelist entry, optionally prioritizing entries in the master list ofchanges based upon an algorithm, and updating a trusted index structureintermittently.

In yet a further aspect, a method includes updating, by a slave device,a change list; publishing, by the slave device, the change list into atleast one slave list of changes; intermittently scanning, by a masterdevice, the at least one slave list of changes to find published changelists; publishing, by the master device, a master list of changes bycollecting each of the published change lists; updating, by the masterdevice, a trusted index structure with the master list of changes;periodically scanning, by the slave device, the master list of changesto see if there are any changes to the master list of changes; andretrieving, by the slave device, the master list of changes when thereare changes to the master list of changes and updating a local metadatabase and a local index database of the slave device.

The method may include transforming the slave device into a new masterdevice when the slave device transmits a signal to a master lock statusof a shared storage device before other slave devices and when themaster device is disabled. The master device may intermittently transmita master list of changes to replace a trusted index structure of ashared storage device. The trusted index structure may be provided tonew slave devices associated with the master device. The shared storagedevice may have no search management capability within its operatingsystem and may be merely a network storage device. The slave device mayreceive notifications from the master device when a master list ofchanges is published. The publishing by the slave device and thepublishing by the master device may be performed by removing a prefix infront of a file name or by otherwise modifying a file's name.

In yet another aspect, a method determines that there are multiplesessions associated with a profile of a master device; and segregateseach session of the multiple sessions in a master list of changes byidentifying each session based on unique identifiers associated witheach of the multiple sessions. The master device may intermittentlytransmit a master list of changes to the shared storage device toreplace a trusted index of the shared storage device.

The present invention describes systems, methods, and machine-readablemedia of varying scope. In addition to the aspects of the presentinvention described in this summary, further aspects of the inventionwill become apparent by reference to the drawings and by reading thedetailed description that follows.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention is illustrated by way of example and notlimitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which likereferences indicate similar elements.

FIG. 1 shows an exemplary embodiment of a data processing system, whichmay be a general purpose computer system and which may operate in any ofthe various methods described herein.

FIG. 2 shows a general example of one exemplary method of one aspect ofthe invention.

FIG. 3A shows an example of the content of the particular type ofmeta-data for a particular type of file.

FIG. 3B shows another example of a particular type of meta-data foranother particular type of file.

FIG. 4 shows an example of an architecture for managing meta-dataaccording to one exemplary embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing another exemplary method according to oneembodiment of the invention.

FIG. 6 shows an example of a storage format which utilizes a flat fileformat for meta-data according to one exemplary embodiment of theinvention.

FIGS. 7A-7E show a sequence of graphical user interfaces provided by oneexemplary embodiment in order to allow searching of meta-data and/orother data in a data processing system.

FIGS. 8A and 8B show two examples of formats for displaying searchresults according to one exemplary embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 9 shows another exemplary user interface of the present invention.

FIG. 10 shows another exemplary user interface of the present invention.

FIGS. 11A-11D show, in sequence, another exemplary user interfaceaccording to the present invention.

FIGS. 12A-12D show alternative embodiments of user interfaces accordingto the present invention.

FIGS. 13A and 13B show further alternative embodiments of userinterfaces according to the present invention.

FIGS. 14A-14D show further alternative embodiments of user interfacesaccording to the present invention.

FIGS. 15A-15D show another alternative embodiment of user interfacesaccording to the present invention.

FIGS. 16A and 16B show certain aspects of embodiments of user interfacesaccording to the present invention.

FIG. 17 shows an aspect of certain embodiments of user interfacesaccording to the present invention.

FIGS. 18A and 18B show further aspects of certain embodiments of userinterfaces according to the present invention.

FIGS. 19A-19E show further illustrative embodiments of user interfacesaccording to the present invention.

FIG. 20 is a flow chart which illustrates another exemplary method ofthe present invention.

FIG. 21 is a flow chart showing another exemplary method of the presentinvention.

FIGS. 22A-22D illustrate the display of a display device on which anembodiment of the method of FIG. 21 is performed.

FIG. 23 is a block diagram of a network environment in which a number ofclient devices are communicating with a shared storage device having amaster lock status, and a shared storage volume having a contentstructure, a trusted index structure, a master list of changes and atleast one slave list of changes, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 24 is a process flow of a one of the slave device(s) of FIG. 23transforming into a master device through assertion of the master lockstatus of FIG. 23, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 25 is a process flow of a slave device generating a change-listentry based on an operation to a data of the slave device, according toone embodiment.

FIG. 26 is a process flow of the master device updating a trusted indexstructure intermittently (e.g., twice a day), according to oneembodiment.

FIG. 27A is a process follow of a slave device publishing a change list,according to one embodiment.

FIG. 27B is a process flow of a master device updating a trusted indexstructure with a master list of changes generated from published slavechange lists as described in FIG. 27A, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 27C is a process flow of a slave device updating a local meta-datadatabase and a local index database from the master list of changes ofFIG. 27B, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 28 is a process flow of the shared storage device managing at leasttwo active sessions of the master device by generating separatechange-list entries based on a physical station address, according toone embodiment.

FIG. 29 is a data structure view of a change-list entry, according toone embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Methods and apparatuses for processing meta-data are described herein.In the following description, numerous details are set forth to providea more thorough explanation of the present invention. It will beapparent, however, to one skilled in the art, that the present inventionmay be practiced without these specific details. In other instances,well-known structures and devices are shown in block diagram form,rather than in detail, in order to avoid obscuring the presentinvention.

Reference in the specification to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment”means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic describedin connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodimentof the invention. The appearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” invarious places in the specification do not necessarily all refer to thesame embodiment.

FIG. 1 shows one example of a typical computer system which may be usedwith the present invention. Note that while FIG. 1 illustrates variouscomponents of a computer system, it is not intended to represent anyparticular architecture or manner of interconnecting the components assuch details are not germane to the present invention. It will also beappreciated that network computers and other data processing systemswhich have fewer components or perhaps more components may also be usedwith the present invention. The computer system of FIG. 1 may, forexample, be a Macintosh computer from Apple Computer, Inc.

As shown in FIG. 1, the computer system 101, which is a form of a dataprocessing system, includes a bus 102 which is coupled to amicroprocessor(s) 103 and a ROM (Read Only Memory) 107 and volatile RAM105 and a non-volatile memory 106. The microprocessor 103 may be a G3 orG4 microprocessor from Motorola, Inc. or one or more G5 microprocessorsfrom IBM. The bus 102 interconnects these various components togetherand also interconnects these components 103, 107, 105, and 106 to adisplay controller and display device 104 and to peripheral devices suchas input/output (I/O) devices which may be mice, keyboards, modems,network interfaces, printers and other devices which are well known inthe art. Typically, the input/output devices 109 are coupled to thesystem through input/output controllers 108. The volatile RAM (RandomAccess Memory) 105 is typically implemented as dynamic RAM (DRAM) whichrequires power continually in order to refresh or maintain the data inthe memory. The mass storage 106 is typically a magnetic hard drive or amagnetic optical drive or an optical drive or a DVD RAM or other typesof memory systems which maintain data (e.g. large amounts of data) evenafter power is removed from the system. Typically, the mass storage 106will also be a random access memory although this is not required. WhileFIG. 1 shows that the mass storage 106 is a local device coupleddirectly to the rest of the components in the data processing system, itwill be appreciated that the present invention may utilize anon-volatile memory which is remote from the system, such as a networkstorage device which is coupled to the data processing system through anetwork interface such as a modem or Ethernet interface. The bus 102 mayinclude one or more buses connected to each other through variousbridges, controllers and/or adapters as is well known in the art. In oneembodiment the I/O controller 108 includes a USB (Universal Serial Bus)adapter for controlling USB peripherals and an IEEE 1394 controller forIEEE 1394 compliant peripherals.

It will be apparent from this description that aspects of the presentinvention may be embodied, at least in part, in software. That is, thetechniques may be carried out in a computer system or other dataprocessing system in response to its processor, such as amicroprocessor, executing sequences of instructions contained in amemory, such as ROM 107, RAM 105, mass storage 106 or a remote storagedevice. In various embodiments, hardwired circuitry may be used incombination with software instructions to implement the presentinvention. Thus, the techniques are not limited to any specificcombination of hardware circuitry and software nor to any particularsource for the instructions executed by the data processing system. Inaddition, throughout this description, various functions and operationsare described as being performed by or caused by software code tosimplify description. However, those skilled in the art will recognizewhat is meant by such expressions is that the functions result fromexecution of the code by a processor, such as the microprocessor 103.

Capturing and Use of Meta-Data Across a Variety of Application Programs

FIG. 2 shows a generalized example of one embodiment of the presentinvention. In this example, captured meta-data is made available to asearching facility, such as a component of the operating system whichallows concurrent searching of all meta-data for all applications havingcaptured meta-data (and optionally for all non-meta-data of the datafiles). The method of FIG. 2 may begin in operation 201 in whichmeta-data is captured from a variety of different application programs.This captured meta-data is then made available in operation 203 to asearching facility, such as a file management system software forsearching. This searching facility allows, in operation 205, thesearching of meta-data across all applications having capturedmeta-data. The method also provides, in operation 207, a user interfaceof a search engine and the search results which are obtained by thesearch engine. There are numerous possible implementations of the methodof FIG. 2. For example, FIG. 5 shows a specific implementation of oneexemplary embodiment of the method of FIG. 2. Alternativeimplementations may also be used. For example, in an alternativeimplementation, the meta-data may be provided by each applicationprogram to a central source which stores the meta-data for use bysearching facilities and which is managed by an operating systemcomponent, which may be, for example, the meta-data processing software.The user interface provided in operation 207 may take a variety ofdifferent formats, including some of the examples described below aswell as user interfaces which are conventional, prior art userinterfaces. The meta-data may be stored in a database which may be anyof a variety of formats including a B tree format or, as describedbelow, in a flat file format according to one embodiment of theinvention.

The method of FIG. 2 may be implemented for programs which do not storeor provide meta-data. In this circumstance, a portion of the operatingsystem provides for the capture of the meta-data from the variety ofdifferent programs even though the programs have not been designed toprovide or capture meta-data. For those programs which do allow a userto create meta-data for a particular document, certain embodiments ofthe present invention may allow the exporting back of captured meta-databack into data files for applications which maintain meta-data abouttheir data files.

The method of FIG. 2 allows information about a variety of differentfiles created by a variety of different application programs to beaccessible by a system wide searching facility, which is similar to theway in which prior art versions of the Finder or Windows Explorer cansearch for file names, dates of creation, etc. across a variety ofdifferent application programs. Thus, the meta-data for a variety ofdifferent files created by a variety of different application programscan be accessed through an extension of an operating system, and anexample of such an extension is shown in FIG. 4 as a meta-dataprocessing software which interacts with other components of the systemand will be described further below.

FIGS. 3A and 3B show two different meta-data formats for two differenttypes of data files. Note that there may be no overlap in any of thefields; in other words, no field in one type of meta-data is the same asany field in the other type of meta-data. Meta-data format 301 may beused for an image file such as a JPEG image file. This meta-data mayinclude information such as the image's width, the image's height, theimage's color space, the number of bits per pixel, the ISO setting, theflash setting, the F/stop of the camera, the brand name of the camerawhich took the image, user-added keywords and other fields, such as afield which uniquely identifies the particular file, whichidentification is persistent through modifications of the file.Meta-data format 331 shown in FIG. 3B may be used for a music file suchas an MP3 music file. The data in this meta-data format may include anidentification of the artist, the genre of the music, the name of thealbum, song names in the album or the song name of the particular file,song play times or the song play time of a particular song and otherfields, such as a persistent file ID number which identifies theparticular MP3 file from which the meta-data was captured. Other typesof fields may also be used. The following chart shows examples of thevarious fields which may be used in meta-data for various types offiles.

User Copied Item Parent in Attribute Description/ Multi- Local- set-Get- with App name hierarchy name Notes CFType value ized table tablecopy viewable Item n/a Authors Who created or CFString Yes No Yes YesYes Address contributed to the Book contents of this item Comment A freeform text CFString No No Yes Yes Yes comment ContentType This is thetype that is CFString No ? No Yes Yes determined by UTI ContentTypesThis is the inheritance of CFString Yes ? No Yes Yes the UTI systemCreatedDate When was this item CFDate No No No Yes Yes createdDisplayName The name of the item as CFString No Yes Yes Yes Yes Finderthe user would like to (or read it. Very well may Launch be the filename, but it Services) may also be the subject of an e-mail message orthe full name of a person, for example. Keywords This is a list wordsset CFString Yes System- Yes Yes Ask by the user to identify providedarbitrary sets of keywords organization. The scope (if any) isdetermined by the user and can be flexibly used for any kind oforganization. For example, Family, Hawaii, Project X, etc. Contact Alist of contacts that CFString Yes No Yes Yes Ask Address Keywords areassociated with this Book document, beyond what is captured as Author.This may be a person who's in the picture or a document about a personor contact (performance review, contract) ModifiedDate When this itemwas last CFDate No No No Yes modified Rating A relative rating (0 to 5CFNumber No n/a Yes Yes value) on how important a particular item is toyou, whether it's a person, file or message RelatedTos A list of otheritems that CFString Yes No Yes Yes are arbitrarily grouped together.TextContent An indexed version of any CFString No No No Yes content textUsedDates Which days was the CFDate Yes No No Yes documentopened/viewed/played Content/ Item Copyright Specifies the owner of thisCFString No No Yes Yes Data content, i.e. Copyright Apple Computer, Inc.CreatorApp Keeps track of the CFString No ? No Yes application that wasused to create this document (if it's known). Languages The languagesthat this CFString Yes Yes Yes Yes document is composed in (for eithertext or audio- based media) ParentalControl A field that is used toCFString No ? Yes Yes determine whether this is kid-friendly content ornot Publishers The name or a person or CFString Yes No Yes Yes Addressorganization that published Book this content. PublishedDate Theoriginal date that this CFDate No No Yes Yes content was published (ifit was), independent of created date. Reviewers A list of contacts whoCFString Yes No Yes Yes Address have reviewed the contents Book of thisfile. This would have to be set explicitly by an application.ReviewStatus Free form text that used CFString No ? Yes Yes to specifywhere the document is in any arbitrary review process TimeEdited Totaltime spent editing CFDate No No No Yes document WhereTos Where did thisgo to, CFString Yes System- ? Yes e.g. CD, printed, provided backedupwords only (if any) WhereFroms Where did this come CFString Yes System-? Yes from, e.g. camera, email, provided web download, CD words only (ifany) Image Data BitsPerSample What is the bit depth of CFNumber No Yesthe image (8-bit, 16-bit, etc.) ColorSpace What color space modelCFString No Yes ColorSync is this document following Utility?ImageHeight The height of the image CFNumber No Yes in pixels ImageWidthThe width of the image CFNumber No Yes in pixels ProfileName The name ofthe color CFString No Yes ColorSync profile used with for Utility? imageResolutionWidth Resolution width of this CFNumber No Yes image (i.e. dpifrom a scanner) ResolutionHeight Resolution height of this CFNumber NoYes image (i.e. dpi from a scanner) LayerNames For image formats thatCFString Yes Yes contain “named” layers (e.g. Photoshop files) ApertureThe f-stop rating of the CFNumber No Yes camera when the image was takenCameraMake The make of the camera CFString No Yes Yes that was used toacquire this image (e.g. Nikon) CameraModel The model of the cameraCFString No Yes Yes used to acquire this image (Coolpix 5700)DateTimeOriginal Date/time the picture CFDate No Yes was takenExposureMode Mode that was used for CFString No Yes the exposureExposureTime Time that the lens was CFDate No Yes exposed while takingthe picture Flash This attribute is CFNumber No Yes overloaded withinformation about red- eye reduction. This is not a binary value GPS Rawvalue received CFString No Yes from GPS device associated with photoacquisition. It hasn't necessarily been translated to a user-understandable location. ISOSpeed The ISO speed the CFNumber No Yescamera was set to when the image was acquired Orientation Theorientation of the CFString No Yes camera when the image was acquiredWhiteBalance The white balance CFNumber No Yes setting of the camerawhen the picture was taken EXIFversion The version of EXIF CFString NoYes that was used to generate the metadata for the image Acquisition-The name or type of CFString Yes Yes Sources device that used to acquirethe media Time- Data Codecs The codecs used to CFString Yes Yes basedencode/decode the media DeliveryType FastStart or RTSP CFString No YesDuration The length of time that CFNumber No Yes the media lastsStreamable Whether the content is CFBoolean No Yes prepared for purposesof streaming TotalBitRate The total bit rate (audio CFNumber No Yes &video combined) of the media. AudioBitRate The audio bit rate of theCFNumber No Yes media AspectRatio The aspect ratio of the CFString NoYes video of the media ColorSpace The color space model CFString No Yesused for the video aspect of the media FrameHeight The frame height inpixels CFNumber No Yes of the video in the media FrameWidth The framewidth in pixels CFNumber No Yes of the video in the media ProfileNameThe name of the color CFString No Yes profile used on the video portionof the media VideoBitRate The bit rate of the video CFNumber No Yesaspect of the media Text Data Subject The subject of the text. CFStringNo Yes This could be metadata that's supplied with the text or somethingautomatically generated with technologies like VTWIN PageCount Thenumber of printable CFNumber No Yes pages of the document LineCount Thenumber of lines in CFNumber No Yes the document WordCount The number ofwords in CFNumber No Yes the document URL The URL that will get CFStringNo Yes you to this document (or at least did at one time). Relevant forsaved HTML documents, bookmarks, RSS feeds, etc. PageTitle The title ofa web page. CFString No Yes Relevant to HTML or bookmark documentsGoogle Structure of where this CFString No Yes Hierarchy page can befound in the Google hierarchy. Relevant to HTML or bookmark documentsCompound Data <Abstract> There are no specific n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/an/a document attributes assigned to this item. This is to catch allapp-specific file formats that fall within Data, but don't fit into anyof the other types. Typically these documents have multiple types ofmedia embedded within them. (e.g. P PDF Compound NumberOfPages Thenumber of printable CFNumber No Yes document pages in the documentPageSize The size of the page CFNumber No No Yes stored as pointsPDFTitle PDF-specific title meta- CFString No ? Yes data for thedocument PDFAuthor PDF-specific author meta- CFString No ? Yes Addressdata for the document Book PDFSubject PDF-specific subject CFString No ?Yes meta-data for the document PDFKeywords PDF-specific keywordsCFString Yes ? Yes meta-data for the document PDFCreated PDF-specificcreated CFDate No ? Yes meta-data for the document PDFModifiedPDF-specific modified CFDate No ? Yes meta-data for the documentPDFVersion PDF-specific version CFString No ? Yes meta-data for thedocument SecurityMethod Method by which this CFString No Yes document iskept secure Presentation Compound SlideTitles A collection of the titlesCFString Yes Yes (Keynote) document on slides SlideCount The number ofslides CFString No Yes SpeakerNotes- The content of all the CFString ?Yes Content speaker notes from all of the slides together ApplicationItem Categories The kind of application CFString Yes Yes this is:productivity, games, utility, graphics, etc. A set list that MessageItem Recipients Maps to To and Cc: CFString Yes Yes Address addresses ina mail Book message. Priority The priority of the CFString No Yesmessage as set by the sender Attachment- The list of filenames thatCFString Yes Yes Names represent attachments in a particular message(should be actionable within the Finder) Authors maps to From address inCFString Yes No Yes Yes Yes Address mail message Book Comment Notapplicable to Mail CFString No No Yes Yes Yes right now (should weconsider?) ContentType CFString No No Yes Yes ContentTypes CFString YesNo Yes Yes CreatedDate When was this message CFDate No No No Yes Yes wassent or received DisplayName Subject of the message CFString No Yes YesYes Yes Keywords There will be a way to CFString Yes System- Yes Yes Askset keywords within provided Mail keywords (if any) Contact Could bewhere CFString Yes No Yes Yes Ask Address Keywords recipients are heldBook ModifiedDate Not applicable CFDate No No No Yes Rating A relativerating (0 to 5 CFNumber No n/a Yes Yes stars) on how important aparticular message is to you (separate from a message's Priority)RelatedTos Potentially threaded CFString Yes No Yes Yes messages couldbe put into this category TextContent An indexed version of CFString NoNo No Yes the mail message UsedDates The day/time in which CFDate Yes NoNo Yes the mail message was viewed/read Contact Item Company The companythat this CFString No Yes Address contact is an employee of Book E-mailsA list of e-mail addresses CFString Yes Yes Mail that this contact hasIMs A list of instant message CFString Yes Yes iChat handles thiscontact has Phones A list of phone numbers CFString Yes that relate tothis contact Addresses A list of physical CFString Yes addresses thatrelate to this person Authors the name of the owner of CFString Yes NoYes Yes Yes Address the Address Book Book (current user name) CommentCFString No No Yes Yes Yes ContentType CFString No No Yes YesContentTypes CFString Yes No Yes Yes CreatedDate date the user enteredthis CFDate No No No Yes Yes into his AddressBook (either through importor direct entry) DisplayName Composite name of CFString No Yes Yes YesYes contact (First Name, Last Name) Keywords There will be a way toCFString Yes System- Yes Yes Ask set keywords within provided AddressBook keywords (if any) Contact CFString Yes No Yes Yes Ask AddressKeywords Book ModifiedDate Last time this contact CFDate No No No Yesentry was modified Rating A relative rating (0 to 5 CFNumber No n/a YesYes stars) on how important a particular contact is to you (separatefrom a message's Priority) RelatedTos (potentially could be CFString YesNo Yes Yes used to associate people from the same company or family)TextContent An indexed version of CFString No No No Yes the Notessection UsedDates The day/time in which CFDate Yes No No Yes the contactentry was viewed in Address Book Meeting(TBD) Item Body text, rich textor CFString No Yes document that represents the full content of theevent Description text describing the event CFString No Yes EventTimestime/date the event starts CFDate Yes Yes Duration The length of timethat CFNumber No Yes the meeting lasts Invitees The list of people whoare CFString Yes Yes Address invited to the meeting Book Location Thename of the location CFString No Yes where the meeting is taking place

One particular field which may be useful in the various meta-dataformats would be a field which includes an identifier of a plug in orother software element which may be used to capture meta-data from adata file and/or export meta-data back to the creator application.

Various different software architectures may be used to implement thefunctions and operations described herein. The following discussionprovides one example of such an architecture, but it will be understoodthat alternative architectures may also be employed to achieve the sameor similar results. The software architecture shown in FIG. 4 is anexample which is based upon the Macintosh operating system. Thearchitecture 400 includes a meta-data processing software 401 and anoperating system (OS) kernel 403 which is operatively coupled to themeta-data processing software 401 for a notification mechanism which isdescribed below. The meta-data processing software 401 is also coupledto other software programs such as a file system graphical userinterface software 405 (which may be the Finder), an email software 407,and other applications 409. These applications are coupled to themeta-data processing software 401 through client application programinterface 411 which provide a method for transferring data and commandsbetween the meta-data processing software 401 and the software 405, 407,and 409. These commands and data may include search parameters specifiedby a user as well as commands to perform searches from the user, whichparameters and commands are passed to the meta-data processing software401 through the interface 411. The meta-data processing software 401 isalso coupled to a collection of importers 413 which extract data fromvarious applications. In particular, in one exemplary embodiment, a textimporter is used to extract text and other information from wordprocessing or text processing files created by word processing programssuch as Microsoft Word, etc. This extracted information is the meta-datafor a particular file. Other types of importers extract meta-data fromother types of files, such as image files or music files. In thisparticular embodiment, a particular importer is selected based upon thetype of file which has been created and modified by an applicationprogram. For example, if the data file was created by PhotoShop, then animage importer for PhotoShop may be used to input the meta-data from aPhotoShop data file into the meta-data database 415 through themeta-data processing software 401. On the other hand, if the data fileis a word processing document, then an importer designed to extractmeta-data from a word processing document is called upon to extract themeta-data from the word processing data file and place it into themeta-data database 415 through the meta-data processing software 401.Typically, a plurality of different importers may be required in orderto handle the plurality of different application programs which are usedin a typical computer system. The importers 413 may optionally include aplurality of exporters which are capable of exporting the extractedmeta-data for particular types of data files back to property sheets orother data components maintained by certain application programs. Forexample, certain application programs may maintain some meta-data foreach data file created by the program, but this meta-data is only asubset of the meta-data extracted by an importer from this type of datafile. In this instance, the exporter may export back additionalmeta-data or may simply insert meta-data into blank fields of meta-datamaintained by the application program.

The software architecture 400 also includes a file system directory 417for the meta-data. This file system directory keeps track of therelationship between the data files and their meta-data and keeps trackof the location of the meta-data object (e.g. a meta-data file whichcorresponds to the data file from which it was extracted) created byeach importer. In one exemplary embodiment, the meta-data database ismaintained as a flat file format as described below, and the file systemdirectory 417 maintains this flat file format. One advantage of a flatfile format is that the data is laid out on a storage device as a stringof data without references between fields from one meta-data file(corresponding to a particular data file) to another meta-data file(corresponding to another data file). This arrangement of data willoften result in faster retrieval of information from the meta-datadatabase 415.

The software architecture 400 of FIG. 4 also includes find by contentsoftware 419 which is operatively coupled to a database 421 whichincludes an index of files. The index of files represents at least asubset of the data files in a storage device and may include all of thedata files in a particular storage device (or several storage devices),such as the main hard drive of a computer system. The index of files maybe a conventional indexed representation of the content of eachdocument. The find by content software 419 searches for words in thatcontent by searching through the database 421 to see if a particularword exists in any of the data files which have been indexed. The findby content software functionality is available through the meta-dataprocessing software 401 which provides the advantage to the user thatthe user can search concurrently both the index of files in the database421 (for the content within a file) as well as the meta-data for thevarious data files being searched. The software architecture shown inFIG. 4 may be used to perform the method shown in FIG. 5 or alternativearchitectures may be used to perform the method of FIG. 5.

The method of FIG. 5 may begin in operation 501 in which a notificationof a change for a file is received. This notification may come from theOS kernel 403 which notifies the meta-data processing software 401 thata file has been changed. This notification may come from sniffersoftware elements which detect new or modified files and deletion offiles. This change may be the creation of a new file or the modificationof an existing file or the deletion of an existing file. The deletion ofan existing file causes a special case of the processing method of FIG.5 and is not shown in FIG. 5. In the case of a deletion, the meta-dataprocessing software 401, through the use of the file system directory417, deletes the meta-data file in the meta-data database 415 whichcorresponds to the deleted file. The other types of operations, such asthe creation of a new file or the modification of an existing file,causes the processing to proceed from operation 501 to operation 503 inwhich the type of file which is the subject of the notification isdetermined. The file may be an Acrobat PDF file or an RTF wordprocessing file or a JPEG image file, etc. In any case, the type of thefile is determined in operation 503. This may be performed by receivingfrom the OS kernel 403 the type of file along with the notification orthe meta-data processing software 401 may request an identification ofthe type of file from the file system graphical user interface software405 or similar software which maintains information about the data file,such as the creator application or parent application of the data file.It will be understood that in one exemplary embodiment, the file systemgraphical user interface software 405 is the Finder program whichoperates on the Macintosh operating system. In alternative embodiments,the file system graphical user interlace system may be Windows Explorerwhich operates on Microsoft's Windows operating system. After the typeof file has been determined in operation 503, the appropriate capturesoftware (e.g. one of the importers 413) is activated for the determinedfile type. The importers may be a plug-in for the particular applicationwhich created the type of file about which notification is received inoperation 501. Once activated, the importer or capture software importsthe appropriate meta-data (for the particular file type) into themeta-data database, such as meta-data database 415 as shown in operation507. Then in operation 509, the meta-data is stored in the database. Inone exemplary embodiment, it may be stored in a flat file format. Thenin operation 511, the meta-data processing software 401 receives searchparameter inputs and performs a search of the meta-data database (andoptionally also causes a search of non-meta-data sources such as theindex of files 421) and causes the results of the search to be displayedin a user interface. This may be performed by exchanging informationbetween one of the applications, such as the software 405 or thesoftware 407 or the other applications 409 and the meta-data processingsoftware 401 through the interface 411. For example, the file systemsoftware 405 may present a graphical user interface, allowing a user toinput search parameters and allowing the user to cause a search to beperformed. This information is conveyed through the interface 411 to themeta-data processing software 401 which causes a search through themeta-data database 415 and also may cause a search through the database421 of the indexed files in order to search for content within each datafile which has been indexed. The results from these searches areprovided by the meta-data processing software 401 to the requestingapplication which, in the example given here, was the software 405, butit will be appreciated that other components of software, such as theemail software 407, may be used to receive the search inputs and toprovide a display of the search results. Various examples of the userinterface for inputting search requests and for displaying searchresults are described herein and shown in the accompanying drawings.

It will be appreciated that the notification, if done through the OSkernel, is a global, system wide notification process such that changesto any file will cause a notification to be sent to the meta-dataprocessing software. It will also be appreciated that in alternativeembodiments, each application program may itself generate the necessarymeta-data and provide the meta-data directly to a meta-data databasewithout the requirement of a notification from an operating systemkernel or from the intervention of importers, such as the importers 413.Alternatively, rather than using OS kernel notifications, an embodimentmay use software calls from each application to a meta-data processingsoftware which receives these calls and then imports the meta-data fromeach file in response to the call.

As noted above, the meta-data database 415 may be stored in a flat fileformat in order to improve the speed of retrieval of information in mostcircumstances. The flat file format may be considered to be a non-Btree, non-hash tree format in which data is not attempted to beorganized but is rather stored as a stream of data. Each meta-dataobject or meta-data file will itself contain fields, such as the fieldsshown in the examples of FIGS. 3A and 3B. However, there will typicallybe no relationship or reference or pointer from one field in onemeta-data file to the corresponding field (or another field) in the nextmeta-data file or in another meta-data file of the same file type. FIG.6 shows an example of the layout in a flat file format of meta-data. Theformat 601 includes a plurality of meta-data files for a correspondingplurality of data files. As shown in FIG. 6, meta-data file 603 ismeta-data from file 1 of application A and may be referred to asmeta-data file A1. Similarly, meta-data file 605 is meta-data from file1 of application B and may be referred to as meta-data file B1. Each ofthese meta-data files typically would include fields which are notlinked to other fields and which do not contain references or pointersto other fields in other meta-data files. It can be seen from FIG. 6that the meta-data database of FIG. 6 includes meta-data files from aplurality of different applications (applications A, B, and C) anddifferent files created by each of those applications. Meta-data files607, 609, 611, and 617 are additional meta-data files created byapplications A, B, and C as shown in FIG. 6.

A flexible query language may be used to search the meta-data databasein the same way that such query languages are used to search otherdatabases. The data within each meta-data file may be packed or evencompressed if desirable. As noted above, each meta-data file, in certainembodiments, will include a persistent identifier which uniquelyidentifies its corresponding data file. This identifier remains the sameeven if the name of the file is changed or the file is modified. Thisallows for the persistent association between the particular data fileand its meta-data.

User Interface Aspects

Various different examples of user interfaces for inputting searchparameters and for displaying search results are provided herein. Itwill be understood that some features from certain embodiments may bemixed with other embodiments such that hybrid embodiments may resultfrom these combinations. It will be appreciated that certain featuresmay be removed from each of these embodiments and still provide adequatefunctionality in many instances.

FIG. 7A shows a graphical user interface which is a window which may bedisplayed on a display device which is coupled to a data processingsystem such as a computer system. The window 701 includes a side barhaving two regions 703A, which is a user-configurable region, and 703B,which is a region which is specified by the data processing system.Further details in connection with these side bar regions may be foundin co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/873,661 filed Jun. 21,2004, and entitled “Methods and Apparatuses for Operating a DataProcessing System,” by inventors Donald Lindsay and Bas Ording. Thewindow 701 also includes a display region 705 which in this casedisplays the results of searches requested by the user. The window 701also includes a search parameter menu bar 707 which includesconfigurable pull down menus 713, 715, and 717. The window 701 alsoincludes a text entry region 709 which allows a user to enter text aspart of the search query or search parameters. The button 711 may be astart search button which a user activates in order to start a searchbased upon the selected search parameters. Alternatively, the system mayperform a search as soon as it receives any search parameter inputs orsearch queries from the user rather than waiting for a command to beginthe search. The window 701 also includes a title bar 729 which may beused in conjunction with a cursor control device to move, in aconventional manner, the window around a desktop which is displayed on adisplay device. The window 701 also includes a close button 734, aminimize button 735, and a resize button 736 which may be used to closeor minimize or resize, respectively, the window. The window 701 alsoincludes a resizing control 731 which allows a user to modify the sizeof the window on a display device. The window 701 further includes aback button 732 and a forward button 733 which function in a mannerwhich is similar to the back and forward buttons on a web browser, suchas Internet Explorer or Safari. The window 701 also includes viewcontrols which include three buttons for selecting three different typesof views of the content within the display region 705. When the contentsfound in a search exceed the available display area of a display region705, scroll controls, such as scroll controls 721, 722, and 723, appearwithin the window 701. These may be used in a conventional manner, forexample, by dragging the scroll bar 721 within the scroll region 721Ausing conventional graphical user interface techniques.

The combination of text entry region 709 and the search parameter menubar allow a user to specify a search query or search parameters. Each ofthe configurable pull down menus presents a user with a list of optionsto select from when the user activates the pull down menu. As shown inFIG. 7A, the user has already made a selection from the configurablepull down menu 713 to specify the location of the search, which in thiscase specifies that the search will occur on the local disks of thecomputer systems. Configurable pull down menu 715 has also been used bythe user to specify the kind of document which is to be searched for,which in this case is an image document as indicated by the configurablepull down menu 715 which indicates “images” as the selectedconfiguration of this menu and hence the search parameter which itspecifies. The configurable pull down menu 717, as shown in FIG. 7A,represents an add search parameter pull down menu. This add searchparameter pull down menu allows the user to add additional criteria tothe search query to further limit the search results. In the embodimentshown in FIG. 7A, each of the search parameters is logically ANDed in aBoolean manner. Thus the current search parameter specified by the userin the state shown in FIG. 7A searches all local disks for all images,and the user is in the middle of the process of selecting another searchcriteria by having selected the add search criteria pull down menu 717,resulting in the display of the pull down menu 719, which has aplurality of options which may be selected by the user.

FIG. 7B shows the window 701 after the user has caused the selection ofthe time option within pull down menu 719, thereby causing the displayof a submenu 719A which includes a list of possible times which the usermay select from. Thus it appears that the user wants to limit the searchto all images on all local disks within a certain period of time whichis to be specified by making a selection within the submenu 719A.

FIG. 7C shows the window 701 on the display of a data processing systemafter the user has selected a particular option (in this case “pastweek”) from the submenu 719A. If the user accepts this selection, thenthe display shown in FIG. 7D results in which the configurable pull downmenu 718 is displayed showing that the user has selected as part of thesearch criteria files that have been created or modified in the pastweek. It can be seen from FIG. 7D that the user can change theparticular time selected from this pull down menu 718 by selectinganother time period within the pull down menu 718A shown in FIG. 7D.Note that the configurable pull down menu 717, which represents an addsearch parameter menu, has now moved to the right of the configurablepull down menu 718. The user may add further search parameters bypressing or otherwise activating the configurable pull down menu 717from the search parameter menu bar 707. If the user decides that thepast week is the proper search criteria in the time category, then theuser may release the pull down menu 718A from being displayed in avariety of different ways (e.g. the user may release the mouse buttonwhich was being depressed to keep the pull down menu 718A on thedisplay). Upon releasing or otherwise dismissing the pull down menu718A, the resulting window 701 shown in FIG. 7E then appears. There areseveral aspects of this user interface shown in FIG. 7A-7E which areworthy of being noted. The search parameters or search query isspecified within the same window as the display of the search results.This allows the user to look at a single location or window tounderstand the search parameters and how they affected the displayedsearch results, and may make it easier for a user to alter or improvethe search parameters in order to find one or more files. Theconfigurable pull down menus, such as the add search parameter pull downmenu, includes hierarchical pull down menus. An example of this is shownin FIG. 7B in which the selection of the time criteria from the pulldown menu 717 results in the display of another menu, in this case asubmenu 719A which may be selected from by the user. This allows for acompact presentation of the various search parameters while keeping theinitial complexity (e.g. without submenus being displayed) at a lowerlevel. Another useful aspect of the user interface shown in FIG. 7A-7Eis the ability to reconfigure pull down menus which have previously beenconfigured. Thus, for example, the configurable pull down menu 713currently specifies the location of the search (in this case, all localdisks), however, this may be modified by selecting the pull down regionassociated with the configurable pull down menu 713, causing the displayof a menu of options indicating alternative locations which may beselected by the user. This can also be seen in FIG. 7D in which the pastweek option has been selected by the user (as indicated by “past week”being in the search parameter menu bar 707), but a menu of options shownin the pull down menu 718A allows the user to change the selected timefrom the “past week” to some other time criteria. Another useful aspectof this user interface is the ability to continue adding various searchcriteria by using the add search criteria pull down menu 717 andselecting a new criteria.

It will also be appreciated that the various options in the pull downmenus may depend upon the fields within a particular type of meta-datafile. For example, the selection of “images” to be searched may causethe various fields present in the meta-data for an image type file toappear in one or more pull down menus, allowing the user to searchwithin one or more of those fields for that particular type of file.Other fields which do not apply to “images” types of files may notappear in these menus in order reduce the complexity of the menus and toprevent user confusion.

Another feature of the present invention is shown in FIGS. 7A-7E. Inparticular, the side bar region 703A, which is the user-configurableportion of the side bar, includes a representation of a folder 725 whichrepresents the search results obtained from a particular search, whichsearch results may be static or they may be dynamic in that, in certaininstances, the search can be performed again to obtain results based onthe current files in the system. The folder 725 in the example shown inFIGS. 7A-7E represents a search on a local disk for all images done onDecember 10^(th). By selecting this folder in the side bar region 703A,the user may cause the display in the display region 705 of the resultsof that search. In this way, a user may retrieve a search resultautomatically by saving the search result into the side bar region 703A.One mechanism for causing a search result or a search query to be savedinto the side bar region 703A is to select the add folder button 727which appears in the bottom portion of the window 701. By selecting thisbutton, the current search result or search query is saved as a list offiles and other objects retrieved in the current search result. In thecase where the search query is saved for later use rather than thesaving of a search result, then the current search query is saved forre-use at a later time in order to find files which match the searchquery at that later time. The user may select between these twofunctionalities (saving a search result or saving a search query) by theselection of a command which is not shown.

FIGS. 8A and 8B show another aspect of a user interface feature whichmay be used with certain embodiments of the present invention. Thewindow 801 of FIG. 8A represents a display of the search results whichmay be obtained as a result of using one of the various differentembodiments of the present invention. The search results are separatedinto categories which are separated by headers 805, 807, 809, and 811which in this case represent periods of time. This particularsegmentation with headers was selected by the user's selecting theheading “date modified” using the date modified button 803 at the top ofthe window 801. An alternative selection of the kind category byselecting the button 802 at the top of the window 801A shown in FIG. 8Bresults in a different formatting of the search results which are nowcategorized by headers which indicate the types of files which wereretrieved in the search and are separated by the headings 815, 817, 819,and 821 as shown in FIG. 8B. The use of these headings in the searchresults display allows the user to quickly scan through the searchresults in order to find the file.

FIG. 9 shows another aspect of the present invention that is illustratedas part of the window 901 shown in FIG. 9. This window includes adisplay region 905 which shows the results of the search and the windowalso includes two side bar regions 903A and 903B, where the side barregion 903A is the user-configurable portion and the side bar region903B is the system controlled portion. A folder add button 927 may beselected by the user to cause the addition of a search result or asearch query to be added to the user-configurable portion of the sidebar. The window 901 also includes conventional window controls such as atitle bar or region 929 which may be used to move the window around adisplay and view select buttons 937 and maximize, minimize and resizebuttons 934, 935, and 936 respectively. The window 901 shows aparticular manner in which the results of a text-based search may bedisplayed. A text entry region 909 is used to enter text for searching.This text may be used to search through the meta-data files or theindexed files or a combination of both. The display region 905 shows theresults of a search for text and includes at least two columns, 917 and919, which provide the name of the file that was found and the basis forthe match. As shown in column 919, the basis for the match may be theauthor field or a file name or a key word or comments or other datafields contained in meta-data that was searched. The column 921 showsthe text that was found which matches the search parameter typed intothe text entry field 909. Another column 911 provides additionalinformation with respect to the search results. In particular, thiscolumn includes the number of matches for each particular type ofcategory or field as well as the total number of matches indicated inthe entry 913. Thus, for example, the total number of matches found forthe comments field is only 1, while other fields have a higher number ofmatches.

FIG. 10 shows certain other aspects of some embodiments of the presentinvention. Window 1001 is another search result window which includesvarious fields and menus for a user to select various search parametersor form a search query. The window 1001 includes a display region 1005which may be used to display the results of a search and auser-configurable side bar portion 1003A and a system specified side barportion 1003B. In addition, the window 1001 includes conventionalscrolling controls such as controls 1021 and 1022 and 1021A. The windowfurther includes conventional controls such as a title bar 1029 whichmay be used to move the window and view control buttons 1037 andmaximize, minimize, and resize buttons 1034, 1035, and 1036. A startsearch button 1015 is near a text entry region 1009. A first searchparameter menu bar 1007 is displayed adjacent to a second searchparameter bar 1011. The first search parameter search bar 1007 allows auser to specify the location for a particular search while two menu pulldown controls in the second search parameter menu bar 1011 allow theuser to specify the type of file using the pull down menu 1012 and thetime the file was created or last modified using the menu 1013.

The window 1001 includes an additional feature which may be very usefulwhile analyzing a search result. A user may select individual files fromwithin the display region 1005 and associate them together as onecollection. Each file may be individually marked using a specificcommand (e.g. pressing the right button on a mouse and selecting acommand from a menu which appears on the screen, which command may be“add selection to current group”) or similar such commands. Byindividually selecting such files or by selecting a group of files atonce, the user may associate this group of files into a selected groupor a “marked” group and this association may be used to perform a commonaction on all of the files in the group (e.g. print each file or vieweach file in a viewer window or move each file to a new or existingfolder, etc.). A representation of this marked group appears as a folderin the user-configurable portion 1003A. An example of such a folder isthe folder 1020 shown in the user-configurable portion 1003A. Byselecting this folder (e.g. by positioning a cursor over the folder 1020and pressing and releasing a mouse button or by pressing another button)the user, as a result of this selection, will cause the display withinthe display region 1005 of the files which have been grouped together ormarked. Alternatively, a separate window may appear showing only theitems which have been marked or grouped. This association or groupingmay be merely temporary or it may be made permanent by retaining a listof all the files which have been grouped and by keeping a folder 1020 orother representations of the grouping within the user-configurable sidebar, such as the side bar 1003A. Certain embodiments may allow multiple,different groupings to exist at the same time, and each of thesegroupings or associations may be merely temporary (e.g. they exist onlywhile the search results window is displayed), or they may be madepermanent by retaining a list of all the files which have been groupedwithin each separate group. It will be appreciated that the files withineach group may have been created from different applications. As notedabove, one of the groupings may be selected and then a user may select acommand which performs a common action (e.g. print or view or move ordelete) on all of the files within the selected group.

FIGS. 11A, 11B, 11C, and 11D show an alternative user interface forallowing a user to input search queries or search parameters. The userinterface shown in these figures appears within the window 1101 whichincludes a user-configurable side bar region 1103A and a systemspecified side bar region 1103B. The window 1101 also includestraditional window controls such as a window resizing control 1131 whichmay be dragged in a conventional graphical user interface manner toresize the window, and the window further includes scrolling controlssuch as controls 1121, 1122, and 1123. The scrolling control 1121 may,for example, be dragged within the scrolling region 1121A or a scrollwheel on a mouse or other input device may be used to cause scrollingwithin a display region 1105. Further, traditional window controlsinclude the title bar 1129 which may be used to move the window around adesktop which is displayed on a display device of a computer system andthe window also includes view buttons 1137 as well as close, minimize,and resize buttons 1134, 1135 and 1136. A back and forward button, suchas the back button 1132, are also provided to allow the user to moveback and forth in a manner which is similar to the back and forthcommands in a web browser. The window 1101 includes a search parametermenu bar 1111 which includes a “search by” pull down menu 1112 and a“sort by” pull down menu 1114. The “search by” pull down menu 1112allows a user to specify the particular search parameter by selectingfrom the options which appear in the pull down menu once it is activatedas shown in FIG. 11B. In particular, the pull down menu 1113 shows oneexample of a pull down menu when the “search by” pull down menu 1112 hasbeen activated. The “sort by” pull down menu 1114 allows a user tospecify how the search results are displayed within a display region1105. In the example shown in FIGS. 11A-11D a user has used the “sortby” pull down menu 1114 to select the “date viewed” criteria to sort thesearch results by. It should also be noted that the user may change thetype of view of the search results by selecting one of the three viewbuttons 1137. For example, a user may select an icon view which is thecurrently selected button among the view buttons 1137, or the user mayselect a list view or a column view.

FIG. 11B shows the result of the user's activation of a “search by” pulldown menu 1112 which causes the display of the menu 1113 which includesa plurality of options from which the user may choose to perform asearch by. It will be appreciated that there are a number of differentways for a user to activate the “search by” pull down menu 1112. One wayincludes the use of a cursor, such as a pointer on a display which iscontrolled by a cursor control device, such as a mouse. The cursor ispositioned over the region associated with the “search by” menu title(which is the portion within the search parameter menu bar 1111 whichcontains the words “search by”) and then the user indicates theselection of the menu title by pressing a button, such as a mouse'sbutton, to cause the pull down menu to appear, which in this case is themenu 1113 shown in FIG. 11B. At this point, the user may continue tomove the cursor to point to a particular option within the menu, such asthe “time” option. This may result in the display of a submenu to theleft or to the right of the menu 1113. This submenu may be similar tothe submenu 719A or to the menu 1214 shown in FIG. 12A. If the “kind”option is selected in the menu 1113, the submenu may include a genericlist of the different kinds of documents, such as images, photos,movies, text, music, PDF documents, email documents, etc. or the listmay include references to specific program names such as PhotoShop,Director, Excel, Word, etc. or it may include a combination of genericnames and specific names. FIG. 11C shows the result of the user havingselected PhotoShop type of documents from a submenu of the “kind” optionshown in menu 1113. This results in the display of the search parametermenu bar 1111A shown in FIG. 11C which includes a highlighted selection1111B which indicates that the PhotoShop type of documents will besearched for. The search parameter menu bar 1111 appears below thesearch parameter menu bar 1111A as shown in FIG. 11C. The user may thenspecify additional search parameters by again using the “search by” pulldown menu 1112 or by typing text into the text entry field 1109. Forexample, from the state of the window 1101 shown in FIG. 11C, the usermay select the “search by” pull down menu 1112 causing the display of amenu containing a plurality of options, such as the options shown withinthe menu 1113 or alternative options such as those which relate toPhotoShop documents (e.g. the various fields in the meta-data forPhotoShop type of documents). A combination of such fields containedwithin meta-data for PhotoShop type documents and other generic fields(e.g. time, file size, and other parameters) may appear in a menu, suchas the menu 1113 which is activated by selecting the “search by” pulldown menu. The user may then select another criteria such as the timecriteria. In this case, the window 1101 displays a new search parametermenu bar 1115 which allows a user to specify a particular time. The usermay select one of the times on the menu bar 1115 or may activate a pulldown menu by selecting the menu title “time,” which is shown as the menutitle 1116. The state of the window 1101 shown in FIG. 11D would thensearch for all PhotoShop documents created in the last 30 days or 7 daysor 2 days or today or at any time, depending on the particular timeperiod selected by the user.

FIGS. 12A, 12B, 12C and 12D show another example of a user interface forallowing the creation of search queries for searching meta-data andother data and for displaying the results of the search performed usinga search query. The different implementation shown in FIGS. 12A-12Dshows a user interface presentation in a column mode; this can be seenby noting the selection of the column button, which is the rightmostbutton in the view buttons 1237 shown in FIG. 12A. The window 1201 hastwo columns 1211 and the display region 1205, while the window 1251 ofFIG. 12C has three columns which are columns 1257, 1259, and the displayregion 1255, and the window 1271 has three columns which are columns1277, 1279, and the display region 1275.

The window 1201 shown in FIGS. 12A and 12B includes a display region1205 which shows the results of a search; these results may be showndynamically as the user enters search parameters or the results may beshown only after the user has instructed the system to perform thesearch (e.g. by selecting a “perform search” command). The window 1201includes conventional window controls, such as a resizing control 1231,a scrolling control 1221, a title bar 1229 which may be used to move thewindow, a window close button, a window minimize button, and a windowresize button 1234, 1235, and 1236, respectively. The window 1201 alsoincludes a user-configurable side bar region 1203A and a systemspecified side bar region 1203B. It can be seen from FIG. 12A that abrowse mode has been selected as indicated by the highlighted “browse”icon 1203C in the system specified side bar region 1203B. The window1201 also includes a text entry region 1209, which a user may use toenter text for a search, and the window 1201 also includes view selectorbuttons 1237.

A column 1211 of window 1201 allows a user to select various searchparameters by selecting one of the options which in turn causes thedisplay of a submenu that corresponds to the selected option. In thecase of FIG. 12A, the user has selected the “kind” option 1212 and thenhas used the submenu 1214 to select the “photos” option from thesubmenu, resulting in an indicator 1213 (photos) to appear in the column1211 under the “kind” option as shown in FIG. 12A. It can also be seenthat the user has previously selected the “time” option in the column1211 and has selected from a submenu brought up when the “time” optionwas selected the “past week” search parameter. When the user hasfinished making selections of the various options and suboptions fromboth the column 1112 and any of the corresponding submenus which appear,then the display showed in FIG. 12B appears. Note that the submenus areno longer present and that the user has completed the selection of thevarious options and suboptions which specify the search parameters.Column 1211 in FIG. 12B provides feedback to the user indicating theexact nature of the search query (in this case a search for all photosdated in the past week), and the results which match the search queryare shown in the display region 1205.

FIGS. 12C and 12D show an alternative embodiment in which the submenuswhich appear on a temporary basis in the embodiment of FIGS. 12A and 12Bare replaced by an additional column which does not disappear after aselection is made. In particular, the column 1259 of the window 1251functions in the same manner as the submenu 1214 except that it remainswithin the window 1251 after a selection is made (wherein the submenu1214 is removed from the window after the user makes the selection fromthe submenu). The column 1279 of window 1271 of FIG. 12D is similar tothe column 1259. The window 1251 includes a side bar which has auser-configurable side bar region 1253A and a system defined side barregion 1253B. The system specified side bar region 1253B includes a“browse” selection region 1254 which has a clear button 1258 which theuser may select to clear the current search query. The window 1271 ofFIG. 12D provides an alternative interface for clearing the searchquery. The window 1271 also includes a user configurable side bar region1273A and a system specified side bar region 1273B, but the clearbutton, rather than being with the “search” region 1274 is at the top ofthe column 1277. The user may clear the current search parameter byselecting the button 1283 as shown in FIG. 12D.

FIG. 13A shows another embodiment of a window 1301 which displays searchresults within a display region 1302. The window 1301 may be acloseable, minimizeable, resizeable, and moveable window having aresizing control 1310, a title bar 1305 which may be used to move thewindow, a text entry region 1306 and a user configurable portion 1303,and a system specified portion 1304. The window 1301 further includesbuttons for selecting various views, including an icon view, a listview, and a column view. Currently, the list view button 1316 has beenselected, causing the display of the search results in a list viewmanner within the display region 1302. It can be seen that the text(“button”) has been entered into the text entry region 1306 and this hascaused the system to respond with the search results shown in thedisplay region 1302. The user has specified a search in every locationby selecting “everywhere” button 1317. Further, the user has searchedfor any kind of document by selecting the “kind” option from the pulldown menu 1315 and by selecting the “any” option in the pull down menu1319. The where or location slice 1307 includes a “+” button which maybe used to add further search parameters, and similarly, the slice 1308includes a “+” and a “−” button for adding or deleting searchparameters, respectively. The slice 1307 further includes a “save”button 1309 which causes the current search query to be saved in theform of a folder which is added to the user configurable portion 1303for use later. This is described further below and may be referred to asa “smart folder.” The search input user interface shown in FIGS. 13A and13B is available within, in certain embodiments, each and every windowcontrolled by a graphical user interface file management system, such asa Finder program which runs on the Macintosh or Windows Explorer whichruns on Microsoft Windows. This interface includes the text entry region1306 as well as the slices 1307 and 1308.

The window 1301 shown in FIG. 13B shows the activation of a menu byselecting the search button 1323A, causing a display of a menu havingtwo entries 1323 and 1325. Entry 1323 displays recently performedsearches so that a user may merely recall a prior search by selectingthe prior search and cause the prior search to be run again. The menuselection 1325 allows the user to clear the list of recent searches inthe menu.

FIGS. 14A, 14B, and 14C show examples of another window in a graphicaluser interface file system, such as the Finder which runs on theMacintosh operating system. These windows show the results of aparticular search and also the ability to save and use a smart folderwhich saves a prior search. The window 1401 shown in FIG. 14A includes adisplay region 1403, a user configurable region 1405, a smart folder1406, a system specified region 1407, an icon view button 1409, a listview button 1410, and a column view button 1411. The window 1401 alsoincludes a text entry region 1415 and a location slice 1416 which may beused to specify the location for the search, which slice also includes asave button 1417. Additional slices below the slice 1416 allow the userto specify further details with respect to the search, in this casespecifying types of documents which are images which were last viewedthis week. The user has set the search parameters in this manner byselecting the “kind” option from the pull down menu 1419 and byselecting the “images” type from the pull down menu 1420 and byselecting the “last viewed” option from pull down menu 1418 and byselecting “this week” from the pull down menu 1422. The user has alsoselected “everywhere” by selecting the button 1421 so that the searchwill be performed on all disks and storage devices connected to thissystem. The results are shown within the display region 1403. The usercan then save the search query by selecting the “save” button 1417 andmay name the saved search query as “this week's images” to produce thesmart folder 1406 as shown in the user configurable portion 1405. Thisallows the user to repeat this search at a later time by merelyselecting the smart folder 1406 which causes the system to perform a newsearch again, and all data which matches the search criteria will bedisplayed within the display region 1403. Thus, after several weeks, arepeating of this search by selecting the smart folder 1406 will producean entirely different list if none of the files displayed in the displayregion 1403 of FIG. 14A are viewed in the last week from the time inwhich the next search is performed by selecting the smart folder 1406.

FIG. 14B shows a way in which a user may sort or further search withinthe search results specified by a saved search, such as a smart folder.In the case of FIG. 14B, the user has selected the smart folder 1406 andhas then entered text “jpg” 1425 in the text entry region 1415. This hascaused the system to filter or further limit the search results obtainedfrom the search query saved as the smart folder 1406. Thus, PhotoShopfiles and other files such as TIF files and GIF files are excluded fromthe search results displayed within the display region 1403 of FIG. 14Bbecause the user has excluded those files by adding an additional searchcriteria specified by the text 1425 in the text entry region 1415. Itcan be seen that the “jpg” text entry is ANDed logically with the othersearch parameters to achieve the search results displayed in the displayregion 1403. It can also be seen that the user has selected the iconview by selecting the icon view button 1409. Thus, it is possible for auser to save a search query and use it later and to further limit theresults of the search query by performing a search on the results of thesearch query to further limit the search results.

FIG. 14C shows the window 1401 and shows the search results displayedwithin the display region 1403, where the results are based upon thesaved search specified by the smart folder 1406. The user has caused apull down menu 1427 to appear by selecting the pull down region 1427A.The pull down region 1427 includes several options which a user mayselect. These options include hiding the search criteria or saving thesearch (which is similar to selecting the button 1417) or showing viewoptions or opening the selected file. This allows the user, for example,to hide the search criteria, thereby causing the slice 1416 and theother search parameters to be removed from the window 1401 which is amoveable, resizeable, minimizeable, and closeable window.

FIG. 14D shows an example of a user interface which allows the user tospecify the appearance of a smart folder, such as the smart folder 1406.

FIGS. 15A, 15B, 15C, and 15D show an example of a system wide searchinput user interface and search result user interface. In one particularexemplary embodiment, these user interfaces are available on the entiresystem for all applications which run on the system and all files andmeta-data, and even address book entries within an address book program,such as a personal information manager, and calendar entries within acalendar program, and emails within an email program, etc. In oneexemplary embodiment, the system begins performing the search and beginsdisplaying the results of the search as the user types text into a textentry field, such as the text entry field 1507. The search results areorganized by categories and are displayed as a short list which isintentionally abbreviated in order to present only a selected number ofthe most relevant (scored) matches or hits to the search query. The usercan ask for the display of all the hits by selecting a command, such asthe “show all” command 1509. FIG. 15A shows a portion of a displaycontrolled by a data processing system. This portion includes a menu bar1502 which has at its far end a search menu command 1505. The user canselect the search menu command by positioning a cursor, using a mouse,for example, over the search menu command 1505 and by pressing a buttonor by otherwise activating or selecting a command. This causes a displayof a text entry region 1507 into which a user can enter text. In theexample shown in FIG. 15A, which is a portion of the display, the userhas entered the text “shakeit” causing the display of a search resultregion immediately below a “show all” command region 1509 which isitself immediately below the text entry region 1507. It can be seen thatthe hits or matches are grouped into categories (“documents” and “PDFdocuments”) shown by categories 1511 and 1513 within the search resultregion 1503. FIG. 15B shows another example of a search. In this case, alarge number of hits was obtained (392 hits), only a few of which areshown in the search result region 1503. Again, the hits are organized bycategories 1511 and 1513. Each category may be restricted in terms ofthe number of items displayed within the search result region 1503 inorder to permit the display of multiple categories at the same timewithin the search result region. For example, the number of hits in thedocuments category may greatly exceed the available display space withinthe search result region 1503, but the hits for this category arelimited to a predetermined or dynamically determinable number of entrieswithin the search result region 1503 for the category 1511. Anadditional category, “top hit” is selected based on a scoring orrelevancy using techniques which are known in the art. The user mayselect the “show all” command 1509 causing the display of a window, suchas window 1601 shown in FIG. 16A. FIG. 15C shows a display of agraphical user interface of one embodiment of the invention whichincludes the menu bar 1502 and the search menu command 1505 on the menubar 1502. FIG. 15D shows another example of the search result region1503 which appeared after a search of the term “safari” was entered intothe text entry region 1507. It can be seen from the search result region1503 of FIG. 15D that the search results are again grouped intocategories. Another search result window 1520 is also shown in the userinterface of FIG. 15D. It can be seen that application programs areretrieved as part of the search results, and a user may launch any oneof these application programs by selecting it from the search resultregion, thereby causing the program to be launched.

FIGS. 16A and 16B show examples of search result windows which may becaused to appear by selecting the “show all” command 1509 in FIG. 15A or15B. Alternatively, these windows may appear as a result of the userhaving selected a “find” command or a some other command indicating thata search is desired. Moreover, the window 1601 shown in FIGS. 16A and16B may appear in response to either of the selection of a show allcommand or the selection of a find command. The window 1601 includes atext entry region 1603, a group by menu selection region 1605, a sort bymenu selection region 1607, and a where menu selection region 1609. Thegroup by selection region 1605 allows a user to specify the manner inwhich the items in the search results are grouped according to. In theexample shown in FIG. 16A, the user has selected the “kind” option fromthe group by menu selection region 1605, causing the search results tobe grouped or sorted according to the kind or type of document or file.It can be seen that the type of file includes “html” files, image files,PDF files, source code files, and other types of files as shown in FIG.16A. Each type or kind of document is separated from the other documentsby being grouped within a section and separated by headers from theother sections. Thus, headers 1611, 1613, 1615, 1617, 1619, 1621, and1623 designate each of the groups and separate one group from the othergroups. This allows a user to focus on evaluating the search resultsaccording to certain types of documents. Within each group, such as thedocument groups or the folder groups, the user has specified that theitems are to be sorted by date, because the user has selected the dateoption within the sort by menu region 1607. The user has also specifiedthat all storage locations are to be searched by selecting “everywhere”from the where menu selection region 1609. Each item in the searchresult list includes an information button 1627 which may be selected toproduce the display of additional information which may be availablefrom the system. An example of such additional information is shown inFIG. 17 in which a user has selected the information button 1627 foritem 1635, resulting in the display of an image 1636 corresponding tothe item as well as additional information 1637. Similarly, the user hasselected the information button for another item 1630 to produce thedisplay of an image of the item 1631 as well as additional information1632. The user may remove this additional information from the displayby selecting the close button 1628 which causes the display of theinformation for item 1635 to revert to the appearance for that itemshown in FIG. 16A. The user may collapse an entire group to hide theentries or search results from that group by selecting the collapsebutton 1614 shown in FIG. 16A, thereby causing the disappearance of theentries in this group as shown in FIG. 16B. The user may cause theseitems to reappear by selecting the expand button 1614A as shown in FIG.16B to thereby revert to the display of the items as shown in FIG. 16A.

The search results user interface shown in FIGS. 16A and 16B presentsonly a limited number of matches or hits within each category. In theparticular example of these figures, only the five top (most relevant ormost highly sorted) hits are displayed. This can be seen by noticing theentry at the bottom of each list within a group which specifies how manymore hits are within that group; these hits can be examined by selectingthis indicator, such as indicator 1612, which causes the display of allof the items in the documents category or kind for the search for“button” which was entered into the text entry region 1603. Furtherexamples of this behavior are described below and are shown inconjunction with FIGS. 18A and 18B. It will be appreciated that window1601 is a closeable and resizable and moveable window and includes aclose button and a resizing control 1625A.

FIGS. 18A and 18B illustrate another window 1801 which is very similarto the window 1601. The window 1801 includes a text entry region 1803, agroup by menu selection region 1805, a sort by menu selection region1807, and a where menu selection region 1809, each of which function ina manner which is similar to the regions 1605, 1607, and 1609respectively of FIG. 16A. Each item in a list view within the window1801 includes an information button 1827, allowing a user to obtainadditional information beyond that listed for each item shown in thewindow 1801. The window 1801 further includes headers 1811, 1813, 1815,1817, 1819, 1821, and 1823 which separate each group of items, groupedby the type or kind of document, and sorted within each group by date,from the other groups. A collapse button 1814 is available for each ofthe headers. The embodiment shown in FIGS. 18A and 18B shows the abilityto switch between several modes of viewing the information. For example,the user may display all of the hits within a particular group byselecting the indicator 1812 shown in FIG. 18A which results in thedisplay of all of the images files within the window 1801 within theregion 1818A. The window is scrollable, thereby allowing the user toscroll through all the images. The user can revert back to the listingof only five of the most relevant images by selecting the “show top 5”button 1832 shown in FIG. 18B. Further, the user can select between alist view or an icon view for the images portion shown in FIGS. 18A and18B. The user may select the list view by selecting the list view button1830 or may select the icon view by selecting the icon view button 1831.The list view for the images group is shown in FIG. 16A and the iconview for the images group is shown in FIGS. 18A and 18B. It can be seenthat within a single, moveable, resizable, closeable search resultwindow, that there are two different views (e.g. a list view and an iconview) which are concurrently shown within the window. For example, thePDF documents under the header 1819 are displayed in a list view whilethe images under the header 1817 are displayed in an icon view in FIGS.18A and 18B. It can also be seen from FIGS. 18A and 18B that each imageis shown with a preview which may be capable of live resizing asdescribed in a patent application entitled “Live Content Resizing” byinventors Steve Jobs, Steve Lemay, Jessica Kahn, Sarah Wilkin, DavidHyatt, Jens Alike, Wayne Loofbourrow, and Bertrand Serlet, filed on thesame date as this application, and being assigned to the assignee of thepresent inventions described herein, and which is hereby incorporatedherein by reference.

FIG. 19A shows another example of a search result window which issimilar to the window 1601. The window 1901 shown in FIG. 19A includes atext entry region 1903 and a group by menu selection region 1905 and asort by menu selection region 1907 and a where menu selection region1908. Further, the window includes a close button 1925 and a resizingcontrol 1925A. Text has been entered into the text entry region 1903 toproduce the search results shown in the window 1901. The search resultsagain are grouped by a category selected by a user which in this case isthe people options 1906. This causes the headers 1911, 1913, 1915, and1917 to show the separation of the groups according to names of people.Within each group, the user has selected to sort by the date of theparticular file or document. The user interface shown in FIG. 19A allowsa user to specify an individual's name and to group by people to lookfor communications between two people, for example. FIG. 19B showsanother way in which a user can group a text search (“imran”) in amanner which is different from that shown in FIG. 19A. In the case ofFIG. 19B, the user has selected a flat list from the group by menuselection region 1905 and has selected “people” from the sort by menuregion 1907. The resulting display in window 1901A is without headersand thus it appears as a flat list.

FIG. 19C shows the user interface of another search result window 1930which includes a text entry region 1903 and the selection regions 1905,1907, and 1908 along with a scrolling control 1926. The results shown inthe window 1930 have been grouped by date and sorted within each groupby date. Thus, the headers 1932, 1934, 1936, 1938, and 1940 specify timeperiods such as when the document was last modified (e.g. last modifiedtoday, or yesterday, or last week). Also shown within the search resultswindow 1930 is the information button 1942 which may be selected toreveal further information, such as an icon 1945 and additionalinformation 1946 as shown for one entry under the today group. Thisadditional information may be removed by selecting the contractionbutton 1944.

FIG. 19D shows a search result window 1950 in which a search for thetext string “te” is grouped by date but the search was limited to a“home” folder as specified in the where menu selection region 1908. Timespecific headers 1952, 1954, 1956, and 1958 separate items within onegroup from the other groups as shown in FIG. 19D.

FIG. 19E shows an alternative embodiment of a search result window. Inthis embodiment, the window 1970 includes elements which are similar towindow 1901 such as the selection regions 1905, 1907, and a scrollingcontrol 1926 as well as a close button 1925 and a resizing control1925A. The search result window 1970 further includes a “when” menuselection region 1972 which allows the user to specify a searchparameter based on time in addition to the text entered into the textentry region 1903. It can be seen from the example shown in FIG. 19Ethat the user has decided to group the search results by the categoryand to sort within each group by date. This results in the headers 1973,1975, 1977, and 1979 as shown in FIG. 19E.

FIG. 20 shows an exemplary method of operating a system wide menu forinputting search queries, such as the system wide menu available byselecting the search menu command 1505 shown in FIG. 15A or 15B, or 15C.In operation 2001, the system displays a system wide menu for inputtingsearch queries. This may be the search menu command 1505. The user, inoperation 2003, inputs a search, and as the search query is beinginputted, the system begins performing and begins displaying the searchresults before the user finishes inputting the search query. This givesimmediate feedback and input to the user as the user enters thisinformation. The system is, in operation 2005, performing a searchthrough files, meta-data for the files, emails within an email program,address book entries within an address book program, calendar entrieswithin a calendar program, etc. The system then, in operation 2007,displays an abbreviated (e.g. incomplete) list of hits if there are morethan a certain number of hits. An example of this abbreviated listing isshown in FIG. 15B. The listing may be sorted by relevance and segregatedinto groups such as categories or types of documents. Then in operation2009, the system receives a command from the user to display all thehits and in operation 2011 the system displays the search resultswindow, such as the window 1601 shown in FIG. 16A. This window may havethe ability to display two different types of views, such as an iconview and a list view within the same closeable, resizable, and moveablewindow. It will be appreciated that the searching, which is performed asthe user is typing and the displaying of results as the user is typingmay include the searching through the meta-data files created frommeta-data extracted from files created by many different types ofsoftware programs.

FIGS. 21, and 22A, 22B, 22C, and 22D will now be referred to whiledescribing another aspect of the inventions. This aspect relates to amethod of selecting a group of files, such as a group of individual datafiles. In an exemplary method of this aspect, a data processing systemreceives a selection of a plurality of items, such as data files,folders (e.g. graphical user interface representations ofsubdirectories), application programs or a combination of one or more ofthese items. This selection may be performed by one of the manyconventional ways to select a plurality of items such as (a) positioninga cursor at each item individually (e.g. through the movement of amouse) and indicating a selection individually by, for example, pressingand releasing a button, such as a mouse's button; (b) pointing a cursorat a first item in a list and indicating a selection of the first itemand pointing the cursor at a last item in a list of items and indicatinga selection of all items from the first item to the last item in thelist; (c) drawing a selection rectangle by a dragging operation of thecursor, etc. Thus operation 2101 shown in FIG. 21 receives one or moreinputs indicating a selection of a plurality of items. The system inoperation 2103 receives a command requesting both the creation of a newstorage facility (e.g. a folder) and an association of the plurality ofitems with the new storage facility. While the operation 2103 is shownfollowing operation 2101, in certain embodiments operation 2103 mayprecede operation 2101. The association of operation 2103 may be a copyor a move operation. For example, the user may select multiple items andthen command the system to move those items from their existinglocations to a new folder which is created in one operation as a resultof the move and create new folder command. In response to the commandreceived in operation 2103, the system creates a new storage facility,such as a new folder, with a predetermined directory path name or a userspecified path name and the system further associates the selectedplurality of items with the new storage facility. This association maybe either a move or a copy operation. A copy operation would typicallyinvolve making a copy of each selected item and storing the item with apath name that reflects the storage of the item within the new folderhaving a predetermined directory path name or a user specified directorypath name. A move operation, in which the items are moved into the newfolder, may merely change the path names associated with each of theselected items (rather than making a copy of the items) which changedpath names will reflect the new file system location (e.g. within thesubdirectory of the new folder) of the selected items.

FIGS. 22A-22D show one example of the method of FIG. 21. A desktop 2201on a display device is shown containing multiple windows and also anicon 2227 on the desktop. A cursor 2211 is also shown on the desktop.The windows 2203, 2205, and 2207 each contain a plurality of items shownas icons. In particular, window 2203 includes a data file represented byicon 2215 in a folder (e.g. a graphical representation of a subdirectoryin a file storage system) represented by icon 2217. The window 2205includes a program icon 2223 and a document icon 2219 and anotherdocument icon 2225 and a folder icon 2221. The window 2207 shows a listview of several files including “File B.” The user may then, using thecursor 2211 or using other conventional user interface techniques,select multiple items. This may be done with one input or more inputswhich indicate the selection of multiple items. FIG. 22B shows theresult of the user having selected icons 2215, 2217, 2223, 2225, 2227,and “File B” in window 2207. It can be seen that the cursor 2211 ispositioned adjacent to the icon 2225 at this point in the operation.

Then the user, after having selected a plurality of items, may invokethe command referred to in operation 2103. An example of this is shownin FIG. 22C which represents a portion of the desktop 2101, whichportion is designated 2201A as shown in FIG. 22C. The user has caused apop up menu 2230 to appear, which pop up menu includes three options2231, 2232, and 2233. Option 2231 would allow a user to move all theselected items into the trash (e.g. delete them) while options 2232 and2233 relate to the command referred to in operation 2103 of FIG. 21. Inparticular, option 2232 is a command which is selectable by the user tocreate a new folder and, in the same operation, move the items whichhave been selected into the new folder. Option 2233 is a command whichallows the user to, in one operation, create a new folder and copy theselected items into the new folder. In the example shown in FIGS.22A-22D, the user will select option 2232, thereby causing the system tocreate a new storage facility, such as a new folder with a predetermineddirectory name (e.g. “new folder”) or alternatively, a user specifiedpath name. This result is shown in FIG. 22D in which the desktop 2201now includes a new window labeled “new folder” which represents andshows the contents of this new folder, which is also shown as the folder2253 which is a graphical user interface representation of this newfolder.

It will be appreciated that this method may employ various alternatives.For example, a window may appear after the command option 2232 or 2233has been selected, and this window asks for a name for the new folder.This window may display a default name (e.g. “new folder”) in case theuser does not enter a new name. Alternatively, the system may merelygive the new folder or new storage facility a default path name. Also,the system may merely create the new folder and move or copy the itemsinto the new folder without showing the new window as shown in FIG. 22D.

Exemplary Processes for Meta-Data Enabled Indexing in a NetworkEnvironment

FIG. 23 is a block diagram of a network environment 2300 in which anumber of client devices (e.g., a master device 2306, at least one slavedevice(s) 2308, and other device(s) 2310) are communicating with ashared storage device 2302 having a master lock status 2322, and ashared storage volume 2312 having a content structure 2314, a trustedindex structure 2316, a master list of changes 2318A, and at least oneslave list of changes 2318B-N (e.g., if there is only one slave, thenonly a slave list 2318B may exist), according to one embodiment.

The shared storage device 2302 may be a standalone storage device, suchas a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) device, a networkcapable hard drive, or other form of storage device (e.g., non-volatileand/or volatile storage device). The shared storage device 2302 may be afile server that has a shared storage volume 2312 that is shared withclient devices. The shared storage device 2302 may have no filesearch/management capability of its own. The master device 2306 and theslave device(s) 2308 may be any form of client device that communicateswith the file server. In one embodiment, the shared storage device 2302,the master device 2306, and the slave device(s) 2308 are embodied in adata processing system, which may be a general purpose computer systemsuch as described in FIG. 1. The other device(s) 2310 may be any otherdevice (e.g., a client device, a printer, a server, a securityappliance, etc.) that is capable of communicating through the network2304.

The network 2304 may be any type of local area network (LAN), wide areanetwork (WAN), storage area network (SAN), and/or any other type ofsystem that transmits any combination of voice, video and/or databetween users.

The master device 2306 and the slave device(s) 2308 store files (e.g.,content data files such as files generated by commercial programs) onthe shared storage device 2302. The master device 2306 and the slavedevice(s) 2308 may have the same physical structure as illustrated inFIG. 23. In the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 23, the master device2306 includes a search module 2324, an index data structure 2326, ameta-data extractor 2328, a change-list management module 2330, achange-list structure 2336, a notification module 2320A, and aprioritization module 2338. The change-list management module 2330 ofthe master device 2306 includes a change-list updater 2332 and achange-list generator 2334 in the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 23.Similarly, the slave device(s) 2308 each include a search module 2340,an index data structure 2342, a meta-data extractor module 2344, achange-list management module 2346, a change-list structure 2352, anotification module 2320B, and a prioritization module 2354 in theembodiment of FIG. 23. Also, in the embodiment of FIG. 23, thechange-list management module 2346 of the slave device(s) 2308 includesa change-list updater 2348 and a change-list generator 2350.

A change-list generator (e.g., the change-list generator 2350) of thechange-list management module (e.g., the change-list management module2346) of a particular client device (e.g., the slave device 2308) maycreate a change-list entry (e.g., a change-list entry 2900 indicating anoperation 2902, a master or slave 2904, a file name 2906, and optionallyother data 2908 as illustrated in FIG. 29) in its change-list structure(e.g., the change-list structure 2352 stored within one of the slavelist(s) of changes 2318B-N) based on an operation (e.g., an operationfield 2902 such as delete, exchange, update status, hostname, sniff,exclusion change, rename, and/or end of file) to a content file (e.g., afile having data created by a user of an application program) stored inthe shared storage device (e.g., within the content structure 2314) bythe particular client device (e.g., the slave device 2308). Also, achange-list updater (e.g., the change-list updater 2348 of the slavedevice(s) 2308) of a change-list management module (e.g., thechange-list management module 2346 of the slave device(s) 2308) mayupdate its local index structure (e.g., the index data structure 2342 ofthe slave device(s) 2308) when a particular client device (e.g., theslave device(s) 2308) receives an updated master list of changes 2318Afrom another client device (e.g., the master device 2306).

The search module 2324 of the master device 2306 and the search module2340 of the slave device(s) 2308 may perform the operations described inFIG. 2. In addition, the search module 2324 and the search module 2340may perform the operation 511 of FIG. 5, and/or any other operationwithin FIGS. 2-23 related to searching of data. The index data structure2326 and the index data structure 2342 may be each embodied as the indexof files 421 of FIG. 4. In addition, the meta-data extractor module 2328and the meta-data extractor module 2344 may be the embodied as themeta-data processing software 401 of FIG. 4. It will be understood thesearch modules, the index data structures, and the meta-data extractormodules of the client devices illustrated in FIG. 23 may be embodied inany of the various examples and user interfaces illustrated in FIGS.1-22.

The functions of the remaining modules in the master device 2306 (e.g.,the change-list management module 2330 and the prioritization module2338) and the slave device(s) 2308 (e.g., the change-list managementmodule 2346 and the prioritization module 2354) are best understood withreference to FIGS. 24-30.

FIG. 24 is a process flow of a one of the slave device(s) 2308 of FIG.23 transforming into a master device 2306 through assertion of themaster lock status 2322 of FIG. 23, according to one embodiment. Inoperation 2402, a slave device (e.g., each of the slave device(s) 2308)transmits a signal to the shared storage device 2302 to determinewhether the master lock status 2322 is locked (e.g., the master lockstatus 2322 may determine which client device is in charge ofmaintaining the master list of changes 2318A). In operation 2404, if themaster lock status 2322 is locked (e.g., a master lock in the masterlock status 2322 indicates another client device is already the masterclient device), than one of the slave device(s) 2308 moves on to otheroperations 2403 (e.g., it should be noted that the slave device may alsocheck whether the master client device is “dead” and/or no longeronline, if the master device is dead, the master lock status 2322 may beinterpreted by the slave device as unlocked) until it needs to accessthe shared storage device 2302 again. Each time one of the slavedevice(s) 2308 communicates with the shared storage device 2302, it maycheck whether the shared storage device 2302 is locked using operation2402.

If master lock status 2322 is unlocked, in operation 2406, the slavedevice transforms (e.g., through a response packet and/or response data)into a new master device (e.g., the master device 2306) and updates themaster lock status 2322 to indicate that it is now the new master device(e.g., the master device is a particular one of the client devices thatmanages the master list of changes 2318A of the shared storage device2302). In alternate embodiments, the master lock status 2322 determineswhether one of the slave device(s) 2308 is the master device based on analgorithm (e.g., a heartbeat messaging algorithm in which a currentmaster device intermittently transmits heartbeat messages to the sharedstorage device 2302 to indicate that it is operational; a first-in-timeassertion in which the first client device to indicate that it is readyand willing to become the master device when the master lock status 2322is unlocked wins; and a preferred client analysis in which the masterlock status 2322 may have certain preferences based on criteria such asspeed, performance, bandwidth, etc. of a particular client device beforemaking a determination whether the particular client device can becomethe master device).

Next, in operation 2408, the new master device collects publishedchange-list entries created by other slave devices (e.g., and stored inthe slave list(s) of changes 2318B-N) and updates the master list ofchanges 2318A. In one embodiment, a prefix (e.g., a period) in front ofa file name indicates that a particular file is being updated by a slavedevice and the removal of the period signals a publication of a filefrom a slave device to one of the slave list(s) of changes 2318B-N. Inthis one embodiment, the master device intermittently scans the slavelist(s) of changes 2318B-N to see if there are any changes made to files(e.g., periods removed to change list entries), and consolidates allchange list entries (e.g., a change list entry 2900 of FIG. 29) changedby the slave devices to the master list of changes 2318A. Furthermore,in this one embodiment, the slave devices intermittently scan the masterlist of changes 2318A (e.g., through a variety of mechanisms the slavedevices may know that the master list of changes 2318A has been updatedsuch as when a period is removed, through a time stamp on the masterlist of changes 2318A, through a heartbeat packet, or any other form ofnotification) and update their local copies of the index structure(e.g., so that they can quickly search the index structure and ensurethat they have the most current version of the index structure).

In operation 2410, the new master device (e.g., one of the slavedevice(s) 2308 transformed now the “master device”) intermittentlyupdates the master list of changes 2318A based upon changes made theslave list of changes 2318B-N stored in the shared storage device 2302.In one embodiment, the new master device publishes (e.g., removes aperiod in front of the file name) its master list of changes 2318Awhenever it has updated the master list of changes 2318A with entries ofthe slave list(s) of changes 2318A-N (e.g., so that slave devices cansee that there have been changes to the master list of changes 2318A) sothat bandwidth across the network 2304 is not extensively tied up andperformance of an operating system remains acceptable to most users.

The new master device may occasionally (e.g., twice a day) replace thetrusted index structure 2316 by updating a pre-existing trusted indexstructure 2316 with the master list of changes 2318A (e.g., the trustedindex structure 2316 is provided to new slave devices that associatethrough network 2304 with the shared storage device 2302). The trustedindex structure 2316 may reference both a meta-data library (e.g., themeta-data database 415 of FIG. 5) and a content library (e.g., storingactual content of various content files) stored within the contentstructure 2314. If the new master device (e.g., one of the slavedevice(s) 2308 now transformed to the “master device”) becomes disabled(e.g., turns off, freezes, restarts, etc.), the master lock status 2322may become unlocked again (e.g., a master lock may be released by themaster lock status 2322).

It should be noted that the meta-data library (e.g., the meta-datadatabase 415 of FIG. 5) stored within the content structure 2314 of theshared storage device 2302 may include internally maintained meta-data(e.g., number of colors in a particular image, whether a flash camerawas used, etc.) and published meta-data (e.g., a file's name, and/or adate of creation, and/or a date of modification, and/or a type of file).

The master list of changes 2318A may include changes made to the variouscontent files (e.g., content files in the shared storage volume 2312) bydifferent slave device(s) 2308. The various content files may be createdby different application programs (e.g., a word processing program, animage processing program, etc.) and may include different internallymaintained meta-data (e.g., different fields for non-published,internally managed meta-data as described in FIGS. 1-23).

The content structure 2314 may be searched for particular ones of theinternally maintained meta-data (e.g., number of colors in a particularimage, whether a flash camera was used, etc.), the content (e.g., theactual text of a content file created by the word processing program),the published meta-data (e.g., a file's name, and/or a date of creation,and/or a date of modification, and/or a type of file), and the newmeta-data (e.g., inferred meta-data such as new meta-data of “war”whenever a document has the word “Iraq” and was created between theyears 2001-2005).

The prioritization module (e.g., the prioritization module 2354 of oneof the slave device(s) 2308, and/or the prioritization module 2338 ofthe master device 2306) may separate, within the change-list structure(e.g., the change-list structure 2352 and/or the change-list structure2336), change-list entries of at least two sessions (e.g., multiplesession may be created when a user of a master device forgets to log offrom one computer and logs onto another computer with the same profile,as is common within universities and classrooms) of the master devicebased on physical station addresses (e.g., a machine authentication code(MAC) address burned into read only memory (ROM) of a hardware deviceand/or interface) associated with each of the at least two sessions(e.g., two different computers at a university on which a user of themaster device profile logged on with).

The meta-data extractor module 2344 of each of the slave device(s) 2308may update the local index data structure 2342 of each of the slavedevice(s) 2308 with internally maintained meta-data, content, andpublished meta-data of a particular content file modified by one of theslave device(s) 2308 and/or other client devices (e.g., when thechange-list entries are stored on the shared storage device in one ofthe slave list(s) of changes 2318B-N).

It will be understood that the process as described in the previousparagraph is to ensure that only one client device is in charge ofensuring that the master list of changes 2318A and the trusted indexstructure 2316 is up to date (e.g., does not become stale) when multiplechange-list entries are created by different ones of the slave device(s)2308 (e.g., the creation and application of change-list entries aredescribed in FIGS. 25-26).

FIG. 25 is a process flow of a slave device (e.g., one of the slavedevice(s) 2308 of FIG. 23) generating a change-list entry (e.g., achange-list entry 2900 of FIG. 29) based on an operation to a data ofthe slave device (e.g., a read/write/modify operation to a content filecreated/edited/or modified by the slave device and stored within theshared storage device 2302), according to one embodiment. In operation2502, one of the slave device(s) 2308 (a particular slave device)performs an operation on a content file associated with the particularslave device (e.g., stored on the shared storage device 2302). Inoperation 2504, the notification module 2320B of the particular slavedevice receives notification of changes to the content file. Inoperation 2506, the particular slave device generates a change-listpacket (e.g., the change-list packet may have fields within thechange-list entry 2900 of FIG. 29, and/or may be the change-list entry2900) of the received notification. In operation 2508, the particularslave device writes the change list packet to the shared storage device2302 (e.g., so that the shared storage device 2302 may update the slavelist(s) of changes 2318B-N).

The particular slave device as described in FIG. 25 may also transformthe particular slave device into a master device when the particularslave device transmits a signal to a master lock status 2322 of theshared storage device 2302 before other client devices (e.g., the slavedevice(s) 2308) and when the master lock status is unlocked (e.g., asdescribed in FIG. 23). In addition, the particular slave device asdescribed in FIG. 25 may search the shared storage device 2302 forparticular ones of the new meta-data, the internally maintainedmeta-data, and the published meta-data (e.g., associated with a searchquery generated by a user of the search module 2324 of the particularslave device).

FIG. 26 is a process flow of the master device 2306 of FIG. 23 updatinga trusted index structure 2316 intermittently (e.g., twice a day). Inoperation 2602, the master device 2306 processes at least one changelist entry generated by at least one slave device (e.g., afterintermittently scanning the slave list of changes 2318B-N to determinewhether there has been any periods removed from the file names). Inoperation 2604, the master device 2306 updates a master list of changes2318A based upon the at least one change list entry. In operation 2606,the master device 2306 optionally prioritizes entries in the master listof changes based upon an algorithm (e.g., any type of algorithm such asone based on business rules of which data is most important). Inoperation 2608, the master device 2306 updates a trusted index structureintermittently (e.g., twice a day).

FIG. 27A is a process follow of a slave device (e.g., one of the slavedevice(s) 2308) publishing a change list (e.g., the change list 2900).In operation 2702, a slave device (e.g., one of the slave device(s)2308) updates a change list (e.g., a change list 2900 as illustrated inFIG. 29) of the slave device. For example, a slave device may update achange list when a particular content file is created, edited, deletedand/or modified, etc. In operation 2704, the slave device publishes(e.g., by removing a period in front of a file name) the change list(e.g., renamed to a form that the master device 2306 can scan) to atleast one of the slave list(s) of changes 2318B-N.

FIG. 27B is a process flow of a master device (e.g., the master device2306) updating a trusted index structure with the master list of changes(e.g., the master list of changes 2318A). In operation 2706, the masterdevice intermittently scans the at least one slave list(s) of changes2318A to find publish change lists (e.g., the change list entry 2900generated and published by at least one of the slave device(s) 2308). Inoperation 2708, the master device (e.g., the master device 2306)collects each of the at least one change list entry (e.g., the changelist entry 2900) generated by at least one slave device (e.g., the slavedevice(s) 2308) and publishes a master list of changes 2318A. Next, inoperation 2710, the master device (e.g., the master device 2306)intermittently updates the trusted index structure (e.g., the trustedindex structure 2316) with the master list of changes 2318A (e.g., byincorporating change list entries from the master list of changes intothe trusted index structure).

FIG. 27C is a process flow of a slave device updating a local meta-datadatabase and a local index database. In operation 2712, a slave device(e.g., one of the slave device(s) 2308) scans the master list of changes2318A. If there have been changes to the master list of changes 2318A,then the slave device (e.g., one of the slave device(s) 2308) retrievesthe master list of changes 2318A and updates a local meta-data databaseand a local index database (e.g., the local meta-data database and thelocal index database may be stored within the slave device, rather thanon the shard storage device 2302).

FIG. 28 is a process flow of the shared storage device 2302 managing atleast two active sessions of the master device (e.g., the master device2306) by generating separate change-list entries based on a physicalstation address (e.g., a MAC address), according to another embodiment.In operation 2802, the shared storage device 2302 determines that thereare multiple sessions associated with a profile of a master device(e.g., multiple sessions may be created when a user of the master deviceforgets to log off a computer and re-logs on to another computer withoutterminating the session on the first computer). In operation 2804, theshared storage device 2302 segregates each session of the multiplesessions in the master list of changes 2318A by identifying each sessionbased on unique identifiers (e.g., unique identifiers such as thephysical station address) associated with each of the multiple sessions.

FIG. 29 is a data structure view of a change-list entry 2900. The changelist entry 2900 may be generated by the change list generator 2334 ofthe master device 2306 and/or the change list generator 2350 of each ofthe slave device(s) 2308. The change-list entry 2900 includes anoperation field 2902, a master or slave field 2904, a file name field2906, and an other field 2908. In one embodiment, the operation field2902 may be used for operations such as delete, exchange (e.g., fortemporary updates to a content file to prevent accidental deletion),update status, hostname (e.g., transmitting client device), sniff,exclusion change, rename, and/or end of file. The master or slave field2904 determines whether a particular change list entry 2900 istransmitted by a master device and/or a slave device, according to theone embodiment. The filename field operates to identify which file isbeing addressed by the change-list entry 2900, according to the oneembodiment. The other field 2908 is operation filed 2902 specific in theone embodiment, and may be used for operations such as to identify a newname for a file being renamed, etc.

Various embodiments also relate to an apparatus for performing theoperations described herein. The apparatus may be specially constructedfor the required purposes, or it may comprise a general purpose computerselectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored onthe computer on a machine-accessible medium. The machine-accessiblemedium may include any mechanism for storing or transmitting informationin a form readable by a machine (e.g., a computer) including amachine-readable medium. The machine-readable medium includes read onlymemory (“ROM”); random access memory (“RAM”); magnetic disk storagemedia; optical storage media; flash memory devices; electrical, optical,acoustical or other form of propagated signals (e.g., carrier waves,infrared signals, digital signals, etc.); etc.

This apparatus may be specially constructed for the required purposes,or it may comprise a general-purpose computer selectively activated orreconfigured by a computer program stored in the computer. Such acomputer program may be stored in a computer readable medium.

The processes and operations presented herein are not inherently relatedto any particular computer or other apparatus. Various general-purposesystems may be used with programs in accordance with the teachingsherein, or it may prove convenient to construct a more specializedapparatus to perform the operations described. The required structurefor a variety of these systems will appear from the description above.In addition, various embodiments are not described with reference to anyparticular programming language. It will be appreciated that a varietyof programming languages may be used to implement the teachings asdescribed herein.

It should be noted that the various embodiments having modules,circuits, switches, devices, tables, processors, and electronicsdescribed herein may be performed within hardware circuitry (e.g., logiccircuitry such as CMOS based circuitry) as well as in software (e.g.,through machine-implemented methods and/or through machine-readablemediums). Specifically, it should be noted that an architecture forvarious modules, generators, and updaters of FIGS. 1-30 can beimplemented in some embodiments with software (e.g., programming codegenerated in machine language, C++, and/or any other type of programminglanguage and accessible through a machine readable medium).

Furthermore, it should be noted that the architecture may be implementedwith one or more semiconductor devices including circuitry such as logiccircuitry to perform its various functions as described above. In someembodiments, hardware circuitry may provide speed and performanceadvantages over software implementations of the search modules 2324 and2340, the prioritization modules 2338 and 2354, the change-listmanagement modules 2330 and 2346, the notification modules 2320A-B, andthe master lock status 2322, etc. of FIG. 23. In other embodiments,software implementations may be preferred. In one embodiment, the searchmodules 2324 and 2340, the prioritization modules 2338 and 2354, thechange-list management modules 2330 and 2346, the notification module2320A-B, the master lock status 2322 may be designed using a searchcircuits, a prioritization circuits, a change-list management circuits,a notification circuit, a master lock circuit, and/or any combination ofthese circuits, and may be built with semiconductor circuitry (e.g.,logic circuitry such as CMOS based circuitry). A semiconductor chip mayimplement the functions (e.g., as described in FIG. 1 thru FIG. 29)described within the various embodiments using logic gates, transistors,and hardware logic circuitry associated with implementing the variousembodiments disclosed herein.

In the foregoing specification, the embodiments have been described withreference to specific exemplary embodiments thereof. It will be evidentthat various modifications may be made thereto without departing fromthe broader spirit and scope of the embodiments as set forth in thefollowing claims. For example, in some embodiments, the conceptsdisclosed herein may be applied to other networking standards andprotocols consistent with this disclosure which are similar to, but notexplicitly confined to various modules, generators, and structuresexplicitly disclosed herein. The specification and drawings are,accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative sense rather than arestrictive sense.

1. A method, comprising: transmitting, using one or more processingunits, one or more change list entries to a shared storage device,wherein each change list entry includes one or more fields identifyingan operation, an operation description, an originating device, and achanged file, and wherein the one or more change list entries areincorporated into a first slave list of changes; transmitting, using theone or more processing units, a signal to the shared storage device,wherein the signal is used to determine a master lock status of theshared storage device, and wherein the master lock status includes anidentity of a current master device maintaining a master list of changeson the shared storage device; transforming, using the one or moreprocessing units, from a slave device into a new master device when themaster lock status is locked and the current master device isnon-responsive; updating, using the one or more processing units, themaster lock status of the shared storage device to identify the slavedevice as the new master device, wherein updating includes updating themaster lock status to include the identity of the new master device;scanning, using the one or more processing units, one or more slavelists of changes on the shared storage device to identify publishedchange list entries, wherein the one or more scanned slave lists ofchanges includes the first slave list of changes; and collecting, usingthe one or more processing units, the published change list entries. 2.The method of claim 1, further comprising: publishing, using the one ormore processing units, one or more of the change list entries in thefirst slave list of changes.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein thepublished change list entries correspond to changes made to one or morecontent files, and wherein the one or more content files are generatedby one or more applications.
 4. The method of claim 3, wherein eachcontent file includes internally maintained metadata.
 5. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the master device is associated with a profile.
 6. Themethod of claim 5, wherein the profile is associated with a plurality ofsessions, wherein each session has a corresponding unique identifier,and wherein each session is associated with one or more change listentries.
 7. A system, comprising: one or more processors; anon-transitory computer-readable storage medium containing instructionsconfigured to cause the one or more processors to perform operations,including: transmitting one or more change list entries to a sharedstorage device, wherein each change list entry includes one or morefields identifying an operation, an operation description, anoriginating device, and a changed file, and wherein the one or morechange list entries are incorporated into a first slave list of changes;transmitting a signal to the shared storage device, wherein the signalis used to determine a master lock status of the shared storage device,and wherein the master lock status includes an identity of a currentmaster device maintaining a master list of changes on the shared storagedevice; transforming from a slave device into a new master device whenthe master lock status is locked and the current master device isnon-responsive; updating the master lock status of the shared storagedevice to identify the slave device as the new master device, whereinupdating includes updating the master lock status to include theidentity of the new master device; scanning one or more slave lists ofchanges on the shared storage device to identify published change listentries, wherein the one or more scanned slave lists of changes includesthe first slave list of changes; and collecting the published changelist entries.
 8. The system of claim 7, further comprising instructionsconfigured to cause the one or more processors to perform operations,including: publishing one or more of the change list entries in thefirst slave list of changes.
 9. The system of claim 7, wherein thepublished change list entries correspond to changes made to one or morecontent files, and wherein the one or more content files are generatedby one or more applications.
 10. The system of claim 9, wherein eachcontent file includes internally maintained metadata.
 11. The system ofclaim 7, wherein the master device is associated with a profile.
 12. Thesystem of claim 11, wherein the profile is associated with a pluralityof sessions, wherein each session has a corresponding unique identifier,and wherein each session is associated with one or more change listentries.
 13. A computer-program product, embodied in a non-transitorymachine-readable storage medium, including instructions configured tocause a data processing apparatus to: transmit one or more change listentries to a shared storage device, wherein each change list entryincludes one or more fields identifying an operation, an operationdescription, an originating device, and a changed file, and wherein theone or more change list entries are incorporated into a first slave listof changes; transmit a signal to the shared storage device, wherein thesignal is used to determine a master lock status of the shared storagedevice, and wherein the master lock status includes an identity of acurrent master device maintaining a master list of changes on the sharedstorage device; transform from a slave device into a new master devicewhen the master lock status is locked and the current master device isnon-responsive; update the master lock status of the shared storagedevice to identify the slave device as the new master device, whereinupdating includes updating the master lock status to include theidentity of the new master device; scan one or more slave lists ofchanges on the shared storage device to identify published change listentries, wherein the one or more scanned slave lists of changes includesthe first slave list of changes; and collect the published change listentries.
 14. The computer-program product of claim 13, furthercomprising instructions configured to cause a data processing apparatusto: publish one or more of the change list entries in the first slavelist of changes.
 15. The computer-program product of claim 13, whereinthe published change list entries correspond to changes made to one ormore content files, and wherein the one or more content files aregenerated by one or more applications.
 16. The computer-program productof claim 15, wherein each content file includes internally maintainedmetadata.
 17. The computer-program product of claim 13, wherein themaster device is associated with a profile.
 18. The computer-programproduct of claim 17, wherein the profile is associated with a pluralityof sessions, wherein each session has a corresponding unique identifier,and wherein each session is associated with one or more change listentries.